


Love requires a Heart to beat

by DarkrystalSky



Series: Love and Change [1]
Category: Dorohedoro
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, I can't believe there's no ship, I'M GONNA WRITE THIS SHIP, Illustrations, M/M, Mutual Pining, these two are the same age and both grew up in hole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23417125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkrystalSky/pseuds/DarkrystalSky
Summary: Young boys living in a hopeless city.One wants to change and leave.One wants to be accepted and stay.Both see in each other something they longed for.AU where Shin and Ai Coleman met as kids.
Relationships: Kaiman & Nikaido (Dorohedoro), Noi & Shin (Dorohedoro), Shin/Ai Coleman, Shin/Kaiman
Series: Love and Change [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721011
Comments: 13
Kudos: 82





	1. Hole

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sorcerers and Us 2: Electric Boogaloo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699433) by [braidcut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/braidcut/pseuds/braidcut). 



“What’s this?”

Doctor Kasukabe lifted his head with a somewhat sheepish smile. “You see, the last rainfall was a bit on the heavy side and the rooftop is about to collapse,” he explained as he finished washing his surgical instruments. “Since I’d rather avoid having to deal with a flood come next rainy day, I’ve decided to call a carpenter to fix it up.”

Ai looked down at the address written on the small piece of paper and then up at the hole in the ceiling with the same expression and said nothing.

“Since I’ve got my hands full here, would you like to check that address out for me, Ai?”

The boy sighed and pocketed the note. “Why don’t you just call?”

“Ah, I don’t know his number,” Kasukabe laughed, “it’s a friend’s address, last time I heard from him he dropped out of medical school to become a carpenter.”

_ Are you that broke you have to ask a friend for help with this? _ Ai wondered but didn’t voice his thoughts.

“This building’s so old, I wonder how long it will hold on…” the Doctor mused as Ai left the clinic.

-

Since the address was unfamiliar to him, Ai decided to check it out with his grandfather before heading out on a bus or something similar. The old man was uncharacteristically home when he unlocked the apartment door.

“Good day?”

“Shitty day,” Mister Coleman grunted, counting a small pile of coins on the kitchen table. “Screwdrivers didn’t work.  _ I told you  _ it wouldn’t work!” he slid the coins in a pouch. “Tomorrow I’m gonna go with hammers.”

“Just go back to drugs,” Ai sighed, looking through the shelves to see if there was anything edible on them. “We need food.”

“Doesn’t that doctor you work for feed you?”

“Sometimes,” he settled on a half-eaten loaf of moldy bread and started scraping it off with a knife. “Actually, I’m supposed to run a job from him.” He slipped the piece of paper across the table. “Any clue where this place is?”

“Mhh?” The old man stretched his neck to get a better look at Kasukabe’s scribbled handwriting. “Not precisely, but that street name is familiar. Maybe south of town?”

Ai nodded, biting into the stale bread. “I’ll check it out tomorrow, then.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” Mister Coleman grinned. “People are more likely to buy if there’s a cute sad boy next to me. I look more honest too, when I say it’s for my grandson’s livelihood.”

Ai resisted the impulse to groan. “Sure,” he sighed, “but I’m going back home after I meet this guy.”

“Neat!”

-

The sky was covered in a thin grey veil that early morning. Run-down buildings were running by the bus windows as the streets went by, everything seemed to have even less color than usual.

_ I wanna leave this place. _ Once again, Ai found himself having those same thoughts. His grandfather didn’t understand: he dismissed his wish as a silly thing youngsters were used to saying: he didn’t realize Ai was a hundred percent serious about it.

He didn’t have a bad life, but he was just enduring it. And he couldn’t stop looking forward to leaving Hole once and for all.

“Here we are, the street you mentioned is the next stop,” his grandfather croaked, distracting him from such thoughts.

“I thought you wanted me to come peddling with you,” he raised his head to look at his grandfather, taking off his baseball hat for a second to fix up his hair.

“Not with that annoyed mug of yours you’re not,” the old man grinned. “You’d just scare the customers away.”

It wasn’t hard to find the house at the address Doctor Kasukabe wrote down, but after two, three times they had rung the bell, there was still no answer.

_ I don’t want to go back to Doc empty-handed but if there’s really no one here… _ Ai kneeled down to take a peek through the keyhole. Inside the house it was pitch black.

“Let’s go, Ai,” his grandfather called, having already started to walk away. “Maybe the neighbors know something, and we can try selling them the hammers.”

Ai stood up, nodding, and followed.

-

It hadn’t even been a year since Shin had started helping his father at the factory. It was a hard, ungrateful job and the factory owner was an asshole, but it paid well enough to allow him and his father to live a decent life in Hole and save money to eventually build their own shop. All things considered, Shin didn’t hate his life in Hole. It was shabby, sure, but he was grateful to be able to live comfortably in it, even with the cursed blood he carried.

“Hiro?” another one of the workers called for Shin’s dad. “There’s a couple guys waiting for you at the door! Said they’re looking for you!”

The man cleaned his hands from the sawdust on a towel and glanced at the factory manager.

“Sure,” the old man tutted, “five minutes. More and I’m taking it out of your salary.”

“Dad-” Shin raised his head, wanting to follow.

“You stay here, I’ll handle it.” Hiro waved his hand at them, walking towards the entrance.

Shin kept working, begrudgingly, but stretched his neck and stepped aside to look at the entrance every time the manager looked the other way. He immediately sighed with relief when he saw that it was an old man and a kid, and not the Militia as he feared. Still, what did they want from his father? The loud noises didn’t allow him to listen to a word they were saying.

“Work instead of eavesdropping, brat!” the manager slapped a rolled newspaper on the back of Shin’s head. As the kid rubbed his neck, Hiro looked back at him and seemed to tell something to the two visitor. Shin watched the old man leave, and his father walk back with the other kid.

“I hope you don’t mind telling me the rest as I work,” Shin heard his father say. “Also,” Hiro put a hand on Shin’s shoulder. “This is my son, Shin, he’s also learning the trade.”

Shin nodded. “Hi,” he said, studying the newcomer head to toe. They had to be roughly the same age, but the kid sure didn’t look like he’d ever done any kind of hard work or even eaten a decent meal in his life.  _ He’s skin and bones, is he ok? _ He almost wondered out loud.

“He works for an old friend from Med school,” Hiro explained as he resumed his work, under the manager’s eyes.

“From before you met mom, then?”

Hiro nodded, “Came to ask for help. He didn’t find me at home but the neighbors told him I was working here. Is that right?”

The scrawny kid nodded. Shin was just staring at him now.  _ He’s a bit creepy. _

“The rooftop caved in with the last storm,” the kid explained, “need some carpenter to fix it up or just to convince Doc to move to a safer building.”

Shin snorted.

“Did I say something funny?” the kid looked at him with a neutral, if anything a little annoyed, expression.

“I just find it amazing you can joke with that mug of yours,” he smirked. “Thought you were wearing a mask for a second.”

“Shin!” Hiro exclaimed.

Shin saw a weird expression form for a moment on the kid’s face. A glint in his eyes, a pinch of amusement, maybe. Definitely a smile, that was already gone when he blinked.

“Not,” the boy said quietly.

“Anyway!” Hiro coughed, “I can’t really check it out myself, I’m working double shifts this month, but Shin’s got Sundays off.”

“Eh?” Shin jerked his head towards the man, “I have to go?”

“Why not? It’s been a while since you took a walk out, and you’ve got a good eye for jobs like this one.” Hiro smiled.

“Sure, Sunday works,” the boy shrugged and was about to turn around to leave.

“Hey,” Shin called, trying to sound more nonchalant than he was. “I don’t know where the place is!”

“I’ll come to pick you up. Sunday 9 am?”

Shin opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times, as the boy partially turned around, waiting for an answer. “Sure…”

The boy started to walk away.

“Wait!” Shin called. “You didn’t even- what’s your name?”

“Ai,” he turned around and,  _ ah, _ Shin grinned. This time there was definitely a thin smile there. “Ai Coleman.”


	2. Rain

Ai appeared on his doorstep at 9 that Sunday morning, as promised.

“Punctual as a clock,” Shin groaned, hair dishevelled and toothbrush still in his mouth when he opened the door. “Come in, I’m getting ready.” He walked back in, leaving the door open.

Ai walked in, closing the door behind him silently. Shin actually had to double-check if he had closed it at all. “You move like a ghost,” he commented off-handedly, heading back to the bathroom.

“Don’t joke about that…” Ai shuddered, tensing up.

Shin noticed the reaction with a certain level of amusement. “What? Afraid of ghosts?”

“Nope!” Ai replied quickly,  _ too quickly. _

Shin snickered. “Ghosts ain’t real.”

“People keep saying that, as if there weren’t magic people doing all kind of weird shit in the world.” He let himself fall on a chair and took off his hat.

“Oh, so it wasn’t glued to your head,” Shin noted as he grabbed a bag of tools his dad left for him together with a sandwich and a note.

“Do you feel the need to constantly say things like that?” Ai followed his every movement. It should’ve been more unnerving but somehow it didn’t bother him so much.

“I don’t know,” Shin scoffed, “do you feel the need to look at people like you hate them?”

Ai frowned and finally looked away, but instead of satisfaction, a cold guilt wormed its way into Shin’s chest, as he immediately regretted saying those words. “Let’s go already,” he stood up, pressing his hat down to almost cover his eyes. “I hope you have bus money.”

-

They sat across each other on the bus ride.

Ai was silently watching out of the window and Shin grew quickly impatient, staring at him but too proud to call him out, waiting instead for him to turn to face him first. There was something irritating and yet endearing in the the scrawny boy’s demeanor, that made Shin nervous. Until, finally, it clicked.

“Where are you?”

Ai didn’t react.

“I said-”

“I’m not answering a nonsense question,” he groaned, bumping his head against the window.

Shin resisted the impulse to snappily reply with an equally acid tone. He resisted because at least part of him wanted to  _ understand. _ “Where are you? You act as if you’re not really  _ here, _ you know? As if your mind is somewhere else.”

Finally, Ai turned around to face him, some kind of curiosity weakly glinting in his eyes. “What?”

“Where are you?” Shin asked for the third time, hoping this would be the good one.

The bus shook as it went from the asphalt to a dirt road. A baby started crying in the back, cradled in the arms of a lady too old to be his parent.

“It’s none of your business,” Ai spoke quietly after a long moment of silence. “Just know I’m not staying in this shitty city longer than I have to. I’m  _ so close  _ to- “ The bus shook again, more violently, just as he leaned his head towards the window. Of course, he promptly slammed his head against the glass with a loud  _ thud. _

Despite everything, Shin found himself snorting as the other kid started spouting a string of curses he wouldn’t have expected to hear from the worst of the dockworkers. It was clear Ai was in pain, though, so after a moment of amusement, Shin opened his bag to take out a plastic bottle full of water. “Here,” he handed it out, “it’s not that cold anymore, but better than nothing.”

Ai glared up at him but after a moment he grabbed the bottle to press it against his forehead, while Shin crossed his arms and smiled with amusement. Maybe,  _ just maybe,  _ being around this kid wasn’t going to be as annoying as he initially thought.

-

The clinic was closed. Which, didn’t really make much sense, Shin thought: hospitals don’t normally close on Sundays, and weirder still, Ai seemed to know his way around even though the building was nothing short of labyrinthic.

“This hospital is weird,” he commented at the third room with weird organs and plants they went through.

“The Doctor is a weird person,” Ai commented with a light note of amusement, “but also the only one capable to…” he stopped in front of a door. “Ah, here we are.”

With a click, the lock opened and the two boys walked into a larger room that housed four dirty surgical beds and several cupboards full of instruments. Standing under a fairly big hole in the ceiling, showing the blue sky, was a middle aged man, smoking a cigarette. As the door opened, he turned towards them with a bright grin. “You must be Hiro’s son! My, you’re the spitting image of your father!”

Shin bowed his head slightly and extended a hand to shake. “It’s Shin. You must be Haze.”

“What the fuck is a Haze,” Ai deadpanned.

Both Shin and the doctor looked at him for a second in baffled silence, broken only when the man started laughing. “Oh, I can’t believe you remember my birthday but not my birth name!”

Ai looked as if his inner world had just been shattered, which only prompted more hilarity from the other two. Fed up by their reaction, he turned around and left, slamming the door behind him.

-

Ai was sitting on a bench in front of the clinic when the door opened up again and Shin walked out. For a moment he considered staying quiet and letting him leave on his own, but for  _ some reason _ he opted to call out instead.

Shin stopped, blue eyes that seemed to stare down his soul turned towards him and Ai was suddenly at loss for words.

“I thought you left,” Shin raised an eyebrow.

Ai shrugged, standing up. “I thought you’d get lost on your own.”

Shin rolled his eyes. “It’s still early,” he looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. “I think I’ll walk back home.”

“What if it starts raining?” Ai mused.

Shin looked a him with pursed lips and a raised eyebrow, raising a finger to point at the mostly clear sky. “Uh??”

“Just a feeling.”

-

The first drops started to fall as the two boys were almost halfway: it took less than five minutes for the sky to cover up in a dark grey veil. Ai’s smug smile was quickly wiped off when he realized he left his backpack and thus his umbrella at the clinic.

The rain had a peculiar smell, Ai thought. The people he told about it often laughed at him or dismissed it, but he’d always been able to  _ feel _ it in the air before it started pouring down, like he had some affinity for it.

“We can still take the bus,” he suggested after a few minutes of walking under the downpour. He didn’t mind being soaked wet, but it bothered him having to dry his clothes later.

“No, I just need to stop a moment…” Shin groaned, slumping on a bench partially covered by a canopy. Ai hesitated, then sat beside him, looking at the few people still walking by in the inclement weather.

Shin made some inarticulate sound and Ai turned around to see the other boy holding his head with a hand, eyes closed shut as if pained by a headache.

“Are you ok?” he asked more out of curiosity than concern.

“Yeah,” Shin sighed. “If I knew it was going to rain, I would’ve stayed home…”

Thunder resonated through the clouds, like the growl of a distant beast. The rainwater quickly forming black puddles in the road, heavy of black particles floating in them: smoke residue. The priest had said something about the rain, though. He couldn’t remember it clearly but…

_ Rainy days were safe because... _

“Shin,” Ai was struck by an idea as he watched the dust moving quickly in the stream at their feet, “you can’t possibly be a Sorcerer, right?”

_ Fear. _

There was a flash of lightning and suddenly Shin was standing right in front of him: the taller, more muscular boy suddenly had a threatening figure. No one was around anymore, the rain was covering any noise and Ai realized no one would’ve heard him.

Ai jerked, trying to stand up, but Shin slammed him back on the bench, grabbing the front of Ai’s soaked t-shirt. Ai’s hat fell off. “You tell  _ anyone,  _ the Doctor, the Militia or  _ anyone _ else,” Shin said between his teeth, “and I’m going to  _ kill _ you.”

Ai looked up at him with eyes wide, both in fear and wonder. “Why…?”

Shin blinked in confusion.  _ Ah, he’s more afraid than I am, _ Ai realized.

“What do you mean why?!” his voice was barely above a whisper but sounded like he wanted to scream. “There’s a reward, don’t you know...?”

“I’m not gonna report you,” Ai stated, looking right into his eyes with a new determination. “Doctor Kasukabe’s wife was a Sorcerer too.”

Shin blinked, slowly letting the boy’s shirt go. “Oh…”

“I don’t hate Sorcerers,” Ai picked up his hat, wondering whether to put it back on or not, since it was covered in mud now.

Shin frowned, then sighed and sat back down. “Didn’t see a wife around there.”

“Yeah, she’s not been around for a while,” Ai said. “But the Doc says she used to.”

“Was she also killed by the Militia?” Shin said so quietly Ai almost missed the question.

He shook his head. “Don’t think so, but I don’t have any love for them. It’s just a bunch of entitled violent assholes.” Ai finally saw Shin relaxing. “Still,  _ why _ ?”

“Why what?”

“Why live in  _ Hole _ of all places?” he asked, not bothering to hide his contempt in pronouncing the name of the city. 

Shin looked at him with curiosity. “I was born here. Besides, my dad’s human and I can’t do any magic. Couldn’t open a Door even if I wanted to.”

Ai went back to watch the rain, holding the hat in his lap. “I wanna become a Sorcerer.” He admitted. “This place has nothing for me.”

Shin snorted.

“Ah?”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever…” Shin stopped mid-sentence, probably when he looked at Ai and realized how serious the boy’s expression was. “...for real?”

“I know it has to be possible. I’ve been studying Kusakabe’s medical books: the only difference is biological, so it should be possible with surgery.”

Shin was silent, too silent. When Ai turned to look at him, he realized he was also looking forward at the rain. “...It’s clearing up.”

“Yeah…”

-

“Shin!” Hiro came running towards him when he finally returned home.

The boy raised his head in surprise. “Shouldn’t you be at the factory?”

Hiro put a warm dry blanket over his son’s shoulders. “I asked for some time off, I was worried since it started to rain…”

“I’m fine,” Shin smiled, “just the usual headache.”

The man led his son inside the apartment, letting him sit down, and took the bag of tools off his hands. “How did it go?”

Shin looked outside the window: the rain had stopped falling but the sky hadn’t cleared yet. He found himself thinking about Ai, who’d left promptly as soon as he arrived home, who Shin had trusted with a heavy secret and yet didn’t feel so worried about it. “Interesting…”

“The rooftop?” Hiro raised an eyebrow, looking at him from the kitchenette.

Shin snapped back to attention. “Ah, no, that one’s a lost cause. Probably could be fixed with some planks but the whole building is really run down!”

His father nodded. “I see...it won’t hurt to take a look next week, though. I already asked the boss if I can bring home some scrap.”

Shin nodded, his focus already shifting back to the Ai. He could almost see him, riding the bus home in his soaked clothes, head leaned against the window, watching the city he hated run by and wishing he could leave it forever.

_Ah,_ he sighed. I _want to see him again._


	3. Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: Gore, Zombies, Canon Typical Violence.**
> 
> Art by [Flavia De Vita](https://www.facebook.com/fdevitart/). Click on the link inside the story to see the artwork.

There were perks to living next to the graveyard. People tended to steer away from the place, especially at night, and rent was cheap even though they lived in a pretty big apartment.

Or at least, Ai did. That morning his Grandfather had left once more for another city: backpack full, wallet empty, he was gone for weeks at time. He smiled at him, but Ai couldn’t care less.

Not about his grandfather, not about the house, not about the money.

Taking a stroll through the gravestones at night was unusual for a kid, but it was the only place where Ai could spend some time outside without necessarily having to deal with people. Dead people didn’t scare him, not even when they came back to life. As he walked, he saw a couple of priests talking with a member of the Militia and tensed.

_Right, the Night of the Living Dead should be upon us soon._

A hand, as cold as Death, and as light as a veil, touched lightly his shoulder and Ai _jumped_ forward, stumbling to the ground, only to see Shin’s amused face looking at him from above.

“Boo, I’m the ghostest spectre!” Shin wiggled his fingers.

“Shut up!” Ai grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at Shin’s face, hitting his nose perfectly. Shin immediately stopped laughing and started sputtering, much to Ai’s delight. “What are you doing here?”

“My dad’s at Kasukabe’s fixing the rooftop. I had him tell me where you lived and,” he pointed up in the direction of Ai’s apartment door, “I saw you from there.”

“At night?”

“When the factory’s closed.”

“Right,” he stood up, glancing at the priests in the distance. It was still quite early. “You still haven’t answered my question?”

“Eh?” Shin blinked then shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets. “Just wanted to check on you.”

 _“Why?”_ Ai couldn’t or didn’t do anything to hide his distaste. “I already said I wasn’t gonna tell on you.”

Shin smiled. “Yeah, and I trust you to keep your word. Dad confirmed the thing about Kasukabe…”

“He did?!” he blinked in shock. “Sorry, I just...never fully believed it.” He sat down on a still intact gravestone, not bothering to check whose it was. “Well, you’ve checked. I’m ok, I’m bored, nothing to do here except watching dead people.”

_And once a year, watching said dead people rise from their graves and being shot, but that’s another deal entirely._

Shin sat on another grave, across the footpath from Ai, kicking some rocks with his feet. “Is this what you do in your free time? Just walk around the graves and wait for ghosts to pop out?”

Ai shuddered, gritting his teeth. “Look! For the last time! Ghosts are a perfectly reasonable thing to be afraid of!”

“Oh?” Shin chuckled, leaning his head on his hand. “How come?”

“The-they are invisible and move stuff!” Ai stood up, starting to gesticulate wildly to emphasize his argument. “And they could be watching you anytime! _And_ they can possess you and make you walk backwards…!”

Shin, looking at him with a mixture of interest and amusement, burst out laughing at the last sentence.

Ai took off his hat and threw it in Shin’s face. “Stop it!”

“You stop tossing stuff at me!” Shin fumbled to grab it before it fell on the ground. He hesitated for a moment before putting it on. “You have a very large head.”

“Give it back!” Ai lunged forward to grab it. Shin grabbed the boy’s wrists with enough strength to keep him away but not enough to actually hurt him.

Ai pushed with his legs against the ground with growing frustration, while the other boy seemed to barely make any effort to hold him in place. “Maybe you should train a little, instead of wandering the graveyard in your free time,” Shin grinned.

There was some shouting coming from afar, but the boys barely paid any attention to it.

Gathering all his strength, Ai crouched down then launched himself forward. He grinned at the surprise on Shin’s face just moments before realizing they were both going to fall. With a loud _crack_ the gravestone broke under their weight and Shin fell backwards on the grass, while Ai rolled to the side, fumbling immediately afterwards to grab his hat and put it back on.

“Do you _feel naked_ without that thing on, or do you _really_ like baseball?” Shin groaned, wondering if he’d broken a few ribs with that.

Ai looked at the broken gravestone. “Fuck, they do make them brittle nowadays.”

Some more shouting could be heard, closer now. “Hey, there’s kids there!”

A member of the Militia was quickly approaching, holding an axe in one hand and some kind of shield turned car door in the other. Shin quickly tensed. Ai could see him digging his nails in the dirt. 

“You shouldn’t be here!” the armored man pointed the axe at them.

“Wait, is it tonight?!” Ai’s eyes widened.

“What is?” Shin attempted to stand up but fell back down, confused. Blinking, he tried to move the foot that seemed to be stuck to the ground and saw a human hand, grey and partially rotten, holding it tightly. _“What the fuck!”_ he started thrashing around to get free, but the grip was tight and more of the arm was emerging from the ground, flesh falling around the bone.

Ai saw the Militia man charging towards them, axe raised. “Wait-” _He’s going to cut Shin too with a weapon like that!_

Before he could catch up to the two, some _thing_ intercepted the man and threw him to the ground. Another zombie, this one bulkier than the one emerging from the ground next to the boys, grabbed the Militiaman's arm and with a stomach-turning _crunch_ bit into it down to the bone. The man started screaming.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ai scrambled up to his feet, running to grab the axe that the man had let go of.

“Help me!” the man begged Ai with a pained expression, but the boy had no care for him. Instead, he turned around and ran towards Shin.

The zombie holding his leg had emerged from the ground up to his torso and was still holding to the boy’s ankle tightly, despite Shin repeatedly kicking him in the face. One of its eyes jumped out of the skull with the kick and dangled, only connected by the optic nerve.

Screaming, Ai lifted the axe above his head and let gravity do the rest, smashing it down right on the zombie’s skull, that broke in half. The head sunk into the ground easily.

As the zombie’s hold got weaker, Shin immediately stood up, backing into the nearest wall. _“What is going on?!”_

Ai grunted and tried to lift the axe again. “Night of the Living Dead.” He ripped it out of the ground and stumbled backwards.

“You _knew_ about this?!”

There was something inside Ai that made him deeply _satisfied_ with seeing Shin so shocked. But he couldn’t let his guard down now. “We need to get to the priests!” Without thinking, he extended a hand towards Shin.

Shin gulped and then grabbed it without hesitation.

More and more undead were now rising from the graves, easily more than there were gravestones. Their run towards the exit was cut off by a weird undead creature, a partially rotten human head sitting on a giant cat body, as big as a lion, that crouched and pounced towards them.

Ai attempted to lift the axe again but was thrown and held to the ground by the creature’s paws, its mouth open and drooling as it lowered on him. Ai shut his eyes a split second before a heavy wet crunch resounded just above him. He blinked and to his surprise he saw Shin’s fist just going through the zombie’s skull, bits of brain juices still clinging to his hand when he stepped back. Ai rolled to the side just in time before getting crushed by the giant cat’s body.

“Come on, we’re not out yet!” Shin grabbed Ai under his arms and lifted him off the ground.

“The axe-”

“Leave it!” he waited for Ai to be back on his feet then bolted towards the priests they had seen earlier.

A few men were fighting not far from them. “Hey!” Ai waved his arms, “we’re here!” A shout prompted him to turn around to see the ground opening under Shin’s foot like a small sinkhole. The boy grabbed a gravestone to avoid falling.

Ai moved to him to help him getting out, but zombies were closing on them from all directions. He could see the men fighting not far, he was so close, _he’d_ be safe.

_I can’t die here._

_I’m so close._

“Ai!” Shin called, and it took the boy just one look into his terrified eyes to dissipate any doubts and rush to his aide. A zombie grabbed onto Ai’s leg just as he grabbed Shin’s arms and attempted to bite into his leg through the fabric. Squeezing his eyes for the effort, he gritted his teeth and started to pull, slowly dragging Shin out of the sinkhole.

As both boys fell on the grass, a series of gunshots riddled the surrounding zombies of bullets. “Kids?! Did you get bitten?”

Ai sat up, rolling up his trousers to check, and sighed with relief when he saw just a faint bruising. He shook his head at their saviour.

Shin groaned, he’d slammed his face on the ground as he fell, and his nose was bleeding profusely. Despite the attempt to cover it up, thick dark red blood trickled through Shin’s fingers. Blood riddled with black dust.

Ai’s eyes widened at the same time as the Militia man’s narrowed. “You…”

Ai acted on impulse, he grabbed the head of a zombie that was still moving and pressed it against the man’s leg. As he hoped, the head bit into the man’s leg and he screamed, dropping the gun, which Ai promptly grabbed. “Good, this I can use!”

Shin was just gaping at him, watching the man fall to the ground and gurgle.

“Come on, we’re leaving!” Ai pointed the gun at a surprisingly fast zombie running towards them and shot him right in the head, then pointed at the Militia man quickly turning into a zombie himself and shot him too.

Shin nodded, still in a stupor, and followed him up to the enclosure wall. The top was covered in barbed wire, but if they ran alongside it at least they couldn’t be ambushed from that side. Ai shot the four remaining bullets to clear the road and Shin managed to kill another couple of zombies with a large tree branch he picked up. Finally, the two of them managed to catch up with the priests and, after a quick examination and salt shower, were let into the safe part of the park.

Away from prying eyes, the two finally let themselves fall on the grass, panting heavily.

Shin put his back against a stony surface before realizing in a moment what it was. “Ah! There’s gravestones here too!” He moved away.

“Yeah, they’re fake graves. They can’t have people wondering why the whole graveyard’s destroyed once a year.” Ai opened his eyes and looked up at the pitch black sky.

“This happens _once a year?!”_ Shin almost screamed.

Ai took a deep breath and moved his head to look at Shin and crawled up to him, looking at him with intensity. “Yeah, I usually watch from the window.” 

“W- what?”

Ai lifted a hand towards the other boy’s face. Shin was paralyzed, heart beating so fast it was almost begging to explode out of his chest. Ai’s cold fingers touched his upper lip for a moment and then Ai sat back down, staring at his own blood stained fingers. “You really are a Sorcerer…” he said, voice barely a whisper.

“I thought you knew that.” Shin frowned, cleaning the blood on his face with the shirt.

“Yeah, but…” Ai dropped his hand on the ground, looking away, then back at Shin. His eyes had a new, determined light in them. “When I become a Sorcerer, come with me to their world.”

_“What?!”_

“I read they have this system, you know? They work in pairs, call themselves _Partners._ ” Ai smiled, maybe for the first time since he knew Shin, he smiled openly at him. “Will you be my Partner?”

Shin gaped for a moment, then groaned. “Are you _stupid?!”_ he weakly punched his head. “This isn’t the time, we need to explain to my dad what happened to us!”

“You could tell him a dog followed you and you fell down a flight of stairs…” Ai smirked.

Shin nodded. “Or maybe a feral homeless guy...with a gun.”

“A giant spider who just wanted to play.”

“A violent self aware vending machine.”

“A pack of rabid baseball players!”

“A _very_ lost train!”

The two of them stared at each other seriously for about two seconds before bursting out laughing so hard Ai even fell on the ground, belly laughing. The priests glanced at them in concern, but the two had no care in the world: the night was young and there were zombies close by, their terrifying noises echoing in the night, but just for now, for the two boys laughing with relief amongst the fake graves, for now, _[they owned the night](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/543206942277894144/695349016199823410/commission_giulia.jpg). _

And Ai smiled at the sky like he’d never really smiled before.

For the first and last time in his life, he didn’t hate _everything_ about the place he was born in.

-

“You smile more, these days” Kasukabe noted one day, passing by the room with the small library where Ai used to hole up all day, reading and writing in his notebook.

The boy glanced at the doorway, still gnawing absentmindedly on the top of a pencil and balancing on the back legs of the chair he was sitting on. “It’s just your impression.”

Kasukabe chuckled. “I’m happy to see you less bored, but…” he stepped in, looking at the collection of anatomy books stacked on the desk. “You still haven’t given up, uh?”

“Absolutely not,” Ai went back to his notebook. “If anything, I have one more reason now.”

The doctor frowned but didn’t voice his concerns. Part of him was really curious about Ai’s own research. The boy was uncannily _smart_ and if not for his weird motivation, Kasukabe would’ve already recommended him to aim for Med school as well.

“Have you ever been to the Sorcerers’ world, Doctor?”

Kasukabe smiled sadly. “Haru went back a few years ago, said she would come back for me and never did.”

“So, she ditched you,” Ai deadpanned. “Well, that’s probably for the best.”

Unable to find the words to retort, Kasukabe sighed. “Don’t stay here all day, it’s sunny outside.”

“No,” Ai smiled, knowingly. “It’s going to rain.”

-

Shin let himself fall, exhausted, on the sofa, as soon as he got home from the factory. His father immediately headed for the kitchen. “Would you like something warm?”

 _“Please.”_ Shin groaned, face buried in the pillow.

Working on rainy days was harder than usual, but today had been nerve wracking. The Militia man in the graveyard saw his blood and immediately switched demeanor towards him, which meant he had to be extra-careful around them. They knew what to look for. If Ai hadn’t been there…

Shin lifted his head. _They really saved each other’s life a bunch of times that night, didn’t they?_ And while Shin only had offed a few zombies, Ai had _killed without hesitation_ a man that put Shin’s life in danger.

Just thinking about it sent Shin in a daze, to just... Imagine someone that wasn’t his dad doing something like that for him would’ve been impossible just a few days prior.

He sat up, looking outside the tiny window. _Maybe, if the rain stopped, he could visit him again._

There was a pleasant smell coming from the kitchen, and he could hear Hiro humming something under his breath. Shin recognized it as the jingle of a commercial that had been playing all day at the factory, which was going to be stuck in their heads for at least a month.

The quiet was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door. Both Shin and his dad tensed.

“Stay there,” Hiro was wearing a serious face as he slowly approached the locked door of the apartment. “Yes?” he called.

“Ah,” Shin could tell the moment he heard the exclamation. “Is Shin there?”

Hiro’s features relaxed as he unlocked and opened the door to show Ai, wearing a yellow waterproof poncho over his clothes, standing in the doorway.

“Ah, did the rooftop collapse again?” Hiro grimaced with a half smile.

Ai shook his head, his eyes already searching the house inside. “I just...uh, was...around.”

Shin snorted and stood up, appearing behind his dad. “Come in already, it’s getting dark.”

Hiro looked at his son and smiled, leaving the doorway to head back to the kitchen.

Ai hesitated. “I just-”

“Come in already.”

-

They saw each other again. Never admitting to miss the other one.

Shin heard Ai’s voice in the rain and that made it a little bit more bearable. Ai found himself smiling every time he saw the patchwork rooftop of the clinic.

Ai’s apartment felt a little less empty.

Shin’s life was a little less small.

It took Shin three months to confess to his dad he was thinking of visiting the Sorcerer’s world with Ai someday: Hiro smiled and showed him photos of a colorful city Shin’s mom had left them.

Ai was working hard, helping Kasukabe to salvage bodies from the Militia, reading anatomy books and writing furiously in his notes.

And then, half a year after their first meeting, Ai knocked on Shin’s door and found it open.

Hesitantly, he stepped inside, wondering if a thief had broken in, or maybe they’d forgot to lock it up. The house was dark, and the smell wafting towards the entrance had _nothing_ to do with Hiro’s cooking.

Ai fumbled to turn on the lights, struggling against something slimy coating the wall. As he clicked on the switch, though, he struggled to comprehend what was in front of him.

The bodies of three men from the Militia, all bloody and bloated, were scattered around the living room, flies already eating on their exposed flesh. One body stood among them: unlike the other, it was sitting on a chair, almost looking as if it was sleeping, but his tongue had been cut, his eyes gouged out, his nails pulled.

The blood had since dried, but it felt like it was still flowing on Hiro’s mangled face.

There was something cold and heavy sitting in Ai’s chest, a coat of ice freezing his heart, and yet he could hear it beating. It was the only thing he could hear as he frantically searched the house for anything, _anything,_ to prove Shin was alright.

The blood of all four people mixed on the floor and walls.

Bright red.

And a darker shade of it.

Ai looked at his hands, still bloody from when he’d touched the wall. There were black particles in that blood. He stumbled towards the entrance, legs weak and wobbly, and threw up in the street.

He wanted to scream.

But the hurt was subsiding quickly. The cold embrace of _hate_ surrounding every single good memory he had of Hole. The cursed, disgusting place that took _everything from him._

_Now, he had no reason to stay._

-

When they heard the Militia had thrown a Sorcerer in the lake of waste, both him and Kasukabe rushed to the scene, not knowing what to hope.

The relief seeing it was just some stranger, drowning in the black waters, was short lived, though. _Because it meant Shin was already…_

Kasukabe turned around, to leave. “There is no point…”

 _There is no point in staying here._ He looked speculatively at Kasukabe. He wasn't going to help him without an incentive. He looked back to the lake. _They just needed one more body._

Ai stepped forward.

_And he let Hole swallow him whole._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with the timeline. In the original story, Ai "died" three years before Shin’s dad. Here, I’m mixing some stuff up and he dies while Shin’s on the run killing the Militia. Starting the next chapter, I’m revising canon. Let’s start with the    
>  __  
>  angst.   
> 


	4. Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: Gore, Mutilation, Canon Typical Violence.**

_There’s an old hat buried at the bottom of a cupboard drawer in Shin’s room, in En’s manor. It’s tattered and faded and too big for his head._

-

One month after Ai’s funeral, the rooftop broke down once again. Kasukabe moved all of his research to his private home, and made the mansion into a medical laboratory to continue the research he started with Ai’s surgery.

He kept practicing in Hole’s main hospital with a younger doctor named Vaux, but mainly to collect Sorcerer parts for his research. With the dust created by the smoke, he even started to create artificial smoke bottles until a mishap with some of them left him with the body of a child.

This pleased him, something rare these days. With this body, he finally had a new chance at life. He finally _quit_ practicing a Doctor and started calling himself Professor to denote his complete devotion to research.

Until the past came back knocking in full force, in the form of an armless, mutilated boy, holed up in the main hospital operation room.

Vaux had called him, distressed and panicked by some weird noises and moans coming from there. The two had approached the doors, both holding some kind of makeshift weapon, and threw them open to take by surprise whoever had sneaked in.

The first thing that was clear was that the boy sitting in front of them had apparently mutilated himself, the second one was that Kasukabe knew his face even if it was warped by a cruel expression he’d never thought he’d see.

And his first feeling was of _relief,_ then _regret,_ but all was forgotten in the face of realization he now had a _living subject for his studies._ And not only a living test subject! Someone _he knew!_

“If you tell the Militia, I’ll get you a nice reward…” Shin growled, looking up with a crooked grin.

Behind him, Vaux made the hissy sound of a dying animal. 

“Out of the question,” Kasukabe smiled, “I won’t get in touch with that bunch of retarded fanatics.”

 _That_ broke the mood. The creepy grimace on Shin’s face vanished like mist in the morning, leaving only shock and confusion. “Wha-”

“I thought you might not recognize me, since I look like this,” Kasukabe kneeled down in front of Shin. “It’s me, Kasukabe, remember? I got younger because of a failed magic experiment...”

“Doctor!” Shin blinked and there was a number of feeling chasing each other on his face for a split second, until his concern solidified in a single question. “Is Ai here?”

Kasukabe frowned, then smiled sadly, his lips thin with pain. “You don’t know…”

Shin’s eyes widened.

The Professor took a deep breath. “It’s been two months since his funeral, Shin.”

Vaux was in a panic, oblivious to the conversation. “If the Militia catches us, we’re _dead meat,_ Professor!”

“He looked for you, when the Militia declared you a Sorcerer. We saw the _wanted_ posters,” Kasukabe continued, deliberately ignoring his colleague. “But we couldn’t find you and you didn’t come looking for us, so we concluded you had died.”

Shin lowered his head, grimacing. “Your wife was a Sorcerer, like dad’s, and they killed him for it. I didn’t want to put you or Ai in danger because of me.”

Vaux, conceding that he wasn’t going to be listened to, despite being the obvious voice of reason, stopped trying and sighed. “I’ll close the hospital, at least we won’t be disturbed.” He left.

“When I found myself in a corner I did look for you, but the clinic had been demolished.”

Kasukabe chuckled. “Yeah, I had to abandon it. Shame for your father’s excellent job: he kept it together for longer than it should’ve been.” He grabbed a piece of Shin’s forearm from the ground. “So you’ve sliced up your arms looking for the smoke veins to be able to cast magic, right? I did read about Sorcerers doing that.”

Shin nodded.

“I can help you with that,” Kasukabe grinned. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to play with a living sample.”

Shin recoiled, probably taken aback by the Professor’s cheery demeanour and choice of words. “...Right, but if you try any funny shit, I’ll kill you!”

-

Hours later, Shin was laying on one of the beds, patiently waiting for Kasukabe and Vaux to finish stitching his sliced up arms back together.

As he observed them do that, he raised one of his stumps and focused on a certain shape. Smoke started to flow out. It was a weird feeling, almost like breathing but with a different pair of lungs.

Kasukabe stopped working and looked at the congealing smoke with gleaming eyes. The smoke started solidifying in a roughly rectangular shape and soon dissolved, leaving a door floating in the middle of the room. It looked like a factory door, made of black steel, with the graffiti of an anatomically correct heart on it.

“So _that’s_ your door,” Kasukabe mused. "Haru's looked completely different."

“Behind this, there’s the Sorcerers’ world,” Shin’s voice was barely a whisper. He could feel his heart swell with pride and hope, but also regret. “I promised Ai we would go there together.” His voice broke and he had to squeeze his eyes shut as his nose started burning.

“I imagined it would be something like that.” Kasukabe slowly put down his medical instruments and the piece of dead flesh he was working on, to stand up and walk towards a desk. Shin’s door was already fading away, when he walked through it to get to the boy’s bedside. He was holding two objects in his hands: a hat and a notebook. “Maybe you can bring him with you, in a way.”

“Didn’t peg you as the wistful type,” Vaux commented off-handedly, getting a glare from Shin.

The boy let Kasukabe put the hat on his head and adjust the strap so it wouldn’t fall.

-

Shin left the next morning, his arms nothing more than lumps of meat cobbled together crudely. He promised he’d show them their magic before leaving and so he did.

_Exterminating the rest of the militia in a single day._

“Holy shit! They’re completely sliced up but still alive!” Vaux shouted at the forty-six men in agony currently being brought to the hospital.

Kasukabe examined them without a ounce of regret or fear. “This magic...it can’t be nobody else’s but his.”

“Did we really do the right thing by saving his life?” Vaux groaned.

Kasukabe looked up, down the road where they’d seen him leave. “Despite everything, I think so.”

\---

Years later, as Shin reflected back on those times, he still had difficulties believing it hadn't been just a hallucinated, lucid dream. His life was so _different_ now: he was a proper Sorcerer, and even one of the most powerful - in magic and status - around, he lived luxuriously in a mansion, and he even had a Partner…

Noi had been unexpected. She had healed him - a thief and an enemy - without hesitation on their first encounter. Shin never thought he’d get an actual Partner, and yet four years later they had signed each other’s Contract and that filled a hole that had been vacant for so long.

Ever since he had regained the use of his arms, he’d taken off the hat, which had sat for years, dusty and forgotten, at the bottom of a cupboard drawer in his private room in En’s mansion.

More and more often, he finally allowed himself to forget Ai.

_When he saw his face again he didn’t recognize it. It was an enemy’s. Bright red lines crossing deep black eyes. When the enemy was defeated, he already forgot about the resemblance. It just left him a bitter taste in his mouth and a discomfort in his chest._

_And, years later, all kinds of feelings stirred inside him when he didn’t immediately recognize the hat on Ebisu’s head._

She had been running around in the mansion’s halls with a distressed face, and Shin wondered for a split second if she’d stupidly traded her mask for a baseball hat, before doing a double take and seeing the faded 8-ball shape on the front.

“Hey!” he shouted, louder than he’d meant to. Noi, who was walking beside him, looked at Ebisu curiously. “Where’d you get that?!”

“Uhhh...trahsh…” she twitched, eyes wide as a deer caught in the headlight.

“That’s not trash! That’s mine!” Shin extended a hand to grab it, but Ebisu, with a shriek, dived under his legs nimbly and bolted away in the opposite direction, hands pressed on the hat to avoid it falling off.

“Damn it,” Shin started running after her.

Noi followed him, curiously. “That’s your hat from when we first met, isn’t it?” She grinned. “How nostalgic! Didn’t know Senpai was so attached to it!”

“I’m not!” Shin quickly caught up to Ebisu. She was fast but he was taller and stronger and easily cut her off from the exit and grabbed the hat.

“Shin...bad…” she sniffled, in a pathetic attempt to cover her unkempt hair with her hands.

“Where’s your mask?” He patted the dust away from it.

“I’s lost...Fujita pack everything with shitty disguse...” she mumbled, before throwing her arms into the air. “Sharks!”

Shin sighed, not knowing what the hell that meant. “And you thought to search in my room? Look, go bother Fujita with this, or ask the servants…” he looked down at the hat again. The symbol had almost completely faded away, the fabric had ripped in more than a few places.

_Bright red lines crossing deep black eyes. The agonizing sensation of vertigo, the pain of the cold steel slicing across his belly, guts spilling on the floor like the contents of a spilled stew._

_“Do I look like him?” Aitake had asked, wearing the Cross-Eyes Boss’ face just before shooting En’s stupid memoire movie._

_He’d looked and almost threw up bile. “Yeah, sure.” He barely glanced at her, he felt nauseous just looking at that face._

_If only those crosses hadn’t been there, he’d look just like-_

“Is that hat such an important memory to you?” Noi’s voice brought him back to the present.

Shin blinked, focusing on her face. _What an unpleasant thing to recall._ “Yeah, not mine though.”

Noi cocked her head to the side, eyeing him curiously.

 _One day he’d tell her about the first “Partner” he had, but not now._ “Not a memory of _me.”_

-

_It was a lazy and hot Sunday afternoon, when Shin headed to the clinic first: his father asked him to return a book to Kasukabe before visiting Ai. A van was parked in front of the building, and Shin wondered if another visitor was around._

_The door was open, the tiny concierge where Ai usually worked was empty, the words “be right back” scribbled on a scrap of cardboard hastily hung on the closed glass. Shin headed to the Doctor’s office, finding the door ajar and the office empty._

_With growing concern, he headed upstairs to the operating room, and while climbing the stairs he crossed paths with an elderly couple walking down, the woman in evident state of shock. “The Doctor?”_

_The old man pointed upstairs, without adding a word._

_Shin rushed upstairs, running towards the operating room, and threw open the door just to remain baffled in front of a room_ completely coated _in red. Kasukabe himself was there, dressed for surgery and similarly coated in red, in the act of scrubbing the mess off the walls with a mop._

_“What the hell happened here?” Shin stuttered, catching the doctor’s attention._

_Kasukabe lowered his medical mask and smiled at him. “Oh, Shin! Uh...a patient exploded.”_

_“Wha-_ exploded?!”

_Kasukabe laughed awkwardly. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up. Ai’s upstairs in the showers, he should be done by now.”_

_“Right, uh-” Shin raised the book to show it._

_“Leave that by my office.”_

_Without any further hesitation, Shin left the room. Following Kasukabe’s instructions, he left the book on the office desk and went back to the staircase, climbing up to the top floor._

_The “showers” were a small public bathroom Shin guessed had to be for the use of hospitalized patients, but the top floor was such in a sorry state he couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to stay there instead of home._

_Shin knocked on the jamb of the already ajar door._

_“Yeah, I’m done. How’s the cleaning going?” Ai’s tired voice came from inside._

_“It’s me,” Shin walked in and for a moment he stopped in his tracks. Ai was just putting on some clean clothes - if Shin had to guess, the pile of bloody rags in the corner were his usual ones - and his hair was still dripping from the shower, slicked back._

_“Ah!” Ai exclaimed in shock and - if the slight blush was a clear indicator - embarrassment. “Wha- what are you doing here?!”_

_Shin stared, squinting at the boy, trying to piece what exactly was different. After a moment wondering what was different, he realized in mild surprised he’d never really seen Ai’s face properly before. The hat and long hair usually covered most of it._

_It wasn’t exactly a handsome face, too gaunt and skinny, with deep black eyes a bit too small under a set of impressively bushy eyebrows. Shin imagined the boy was very self conscious about it, because he immediately grabbed a bath towel and threw it over his own head._

_“Hey? You gonna speak?”_

_Shin sighed and smiled. “Want some help with the mess downstairs?”_

-

This wasn’t how Kasukabe thought his first visit to the Sorcerers’ world would go.

It wasn’t the pain from his hand cut off or from the black eye that made Kasukabe realize he was going to die. It was the pressure of the sole firmly planted in his chest, keeping him on the ground.

_Ah, what a pity. I would’ve liked to see Haru again._

“What should I gouge out first? Your head or your heart?” his assailant asked. It was a Sorcerer wearing a creepy mask shaped like an anatomically correct heart, with a muscular build and an elegant, yet bloodstained, black suit. Before Kasukabe could answer, though, the pressure suddenly lifted from his chest. “Hey, hold on, aren’t you that Doctor from Hole?!”

“Eh?”

The Sorcerer took off his mask and for a moment Kasukabe was thrown for a loop because the man in front of him was the spitting image of an old friend. It was Hiro’s face. “It’s me!” the man grinned with surprise and joy. “Do you remember me?”

“Ah! Shin!” Kasukabe beamed, recognizing the softer features and the small differences on Hiro’s son.

Shin, easily more than a foot taller than Kasukabe now, lifted the Doctor off the ground easily. “Long time no see! What are you doing here?” He smiled amicably, as if he hadn’t just threatened to kill him.

“Mr. Shin! What are you doing? Kill them quickly!” the scrawny young Sorcerer from before shouted at them.

Shin put Kasukabe down gently, turning towards his colleague with a frown. “Fujita...I can’t do that. I owe this man my life…”

“Your life?!” the other Sorcerer, the bulky one who tackled Jonson to the ground, exclaimed.

“Not my day…” the boy called Fujita sighed, as Shin looked around.

“There’s no guards here, but you’re not safe. Come with me…” Shin put his mask back on and gestured him to follow.

Kasukabe smiled and nodded, whistling at Jonson, now free too, to follow. _You’ve become a fine Sorcerer, haven’t you, Shin?_

-

Meeting Haru again, even in such a different form, had left him with all kinds of fluttering feelings in his chest, feelings he never thought he’d experience again at his age.

And yet, something troubled him.

_The face of the wax idol. That face was…_

“Kasukabe!”

Kasukabe jumped, distracted from his daydream, and looked up at Shin’s face. _Impossible._

“What’s wrong? Are you still in pain?”

He shook his head, smiling reassuringly. _I can’t tell him._ “Nah, I’m fine thanks to Noi’s magic!” _He can’t know._ “We can consider this case closed and go back home. I even got to meet my wife for the first time in a while!” _But he deserves to know._ “But…”

Shin sighed. “I’ll open a door and get you back to Hole.”

“Come with us,” Kasukabe said immediately. “There’s something I never…” he took a breath, searching for the right words to say it. “There’s something you should know. About that doll, and about…”

“Doll?” Shin cut him off.

“Yeah,” Kasukabe blinked, a name stuck at the bottom of his throat. “In that room, I saw a person on the altar. But really, it was just a very well made wax mannequin.”

“Ah! I remember that!” Noi exclaimed. “So it was a doll!”

The doll, worshipped by the members of the Cross-Eyes, couldn’t have been anything else than an image of their Boss, they had all agreed. But as they discussed it, Kasukabe wasn’t smiling anymore. “That doll’s face...I know it.” He looked up at Shin, wishing he could just _not tell him._ But he had to. “Shin,” he said, staring right into his eyes.

Shin blinked, oblivious to the turmoil of feelings Kasukabe was experiencing.

“Shin,” he continued, making sure he had everyone’s attention on him. “The doll’s face,” he took a deep breath, “it was _his._ ”

Shin gasped, and held his breath. Everything in his body language told Kasukabe he _somehow_ already knew what he was going to say, and _didn’t want_ him to.

“It was Ai.”

-

Even though she had been his partner for years, Noi had never asked Shin about his past. What she knew, she knew because he had talked about it himself: she knew he was half-human and born in Hole, that he had cut his own arms to be able to use magic, before meeting Noi.

She knew he was _kind_ enough to save her life unconditionally during that Blue Night. She knew she could trust him completely.

 _She knew his hands were shaking under the table_ as they waited for Kasukabe like he instructed them to, inside a small room in the run-down hospital of Hole.

So, it was very unlike her, and it was only out of concern for his current wellbeing that she asked. “Who is Ai?”

Shin’s expression was hard to read behind the mask, and Noi wondered if that was the exact reason he kept it on. “A ghost,” he said simply.

Kasukabe walked back in, his smile uncharacteristically weary. “Sorry to make you wait.” He was holding a large file in his hand, that he handed to Shin.

“What’s this?” Shin started browsing through it.

Kasukabe glanced at Noi. “Is it fine to-”

“Yes.” He glared at him. “Explain.”

The Professor sighed, sitting at the table with the two of them. “When you came here last time, all those years ago, I told you Ai had died.”

Shin looked at the photographs in the file, showing a completely bandaged man rehabilitating on the course of several days. He _knew_ who that was, even if he couldn’t see his face. “If you’ve _lied_ to me. I’m going to _destroy_ you.” His voice was almost a growl.

“I didn’t, but the truth is slightly more complicated.”

He told him everything, about Ai’s actions days after Shin’s disappearance, about how he dived into the corrosive waste, just to ask Kasukabe to perform surgery on him, surgery to implant him the smoke-producing organs from the eight Sorcerer bodies they had scavenged. He told about Ai’s miraculous recovery, and about his words the last time he saw him alive. “He told me he had become a Sorcerer, he seemed really convinced of that.” Kasukabe concluded. “And before you ask,” he interrupted an unspoken question. “I performed the autopsy on his body. He _was_ dead, I’m completely sure about that.”

Noi listened in silence. This wasn’t her place, this wasn’t her story. But seeing her Senpai so distressed made her insides churn painfully. “Is there a way to check…?”

Shin shot up on his feet. “We’re going back, this is bullshit!” He slammed the file back on the table and started to walk away.

“Senpai, wait!” Noi grabbed his arm. “What-”

“That _wasn’t_ Ai!” Shin screamed, without turning around. “We _fought_ the Cross-Eyes boss, we _saw_ his face, he-”

“What did he look like?” Kasukabe sounded genuinely curious.

“He didn’t- I- We-”

Noi sighed, turning around to answer instead. "I can’t remember…”

Shin jerked away from Noi’s hold and ripped his own mask off. His face was twisted in pure _agony._ “That _thing_ wasn’t-” he seemed to choke on his own words then turned around and bolted away.

-

Noi found him sitting on the floor of the waiting room and holding his head in his hands, gripping tightly on his hair like he wanted to rip it off his head. She sighed and quietly sat beside him, holding both her mask and his in her hands.

“Senpai, I…”

He tensed up.

“I don’t really understand, but this feels like the kind of wound not even my smoke would heal,” she said softly.

Shin lifted his head. Somehow, Noi was surprised to see his expression was just blank. Not angry, not sad, just _empty._ “It’s been so long, I didn’t think I could lose my composure because such a stupid thing.”

Noi frowned. “Senpai…”

Shin stood up. “Ai’s dead and I’ll prove it to you!”

-

_Ai’s grave was empty._

_The coffin was nailed shut and pristine, as if no dead body was ever buried in it._

Shin was just staring, unable to move a muscle. Mister Coleman’s string of insults barely reached his ears, every noise muffled, voices from underwater.

“-pai! Senpai!” Noi’s hand on his shoulder shook him out of his trance. Unable to ask for help, he just looked at her. _He probably looked so weak right now_ , he could see it on her face, _and he hated himself for it._

Kasukabe was leaving in a hurry, Shin didn’t even notice. At the time, he just wished the ground would swallow him up too.

-

 _“Isn’t it creepy to live above a graveyard? Shin wondered as the two sat in front of Ai’s apartment, legs dangling from the balcony, a few days after the zombie invasion. “Not to mention the_ smell…”

 _Ai munched on his fifth red bean manju. Shin couldn’t help but wonder where the_ hell _all the food he ate went in his lithe frame. “It’s especially bad after_ the _Night. But it’s barely an issue the rest of the year,” he muttered with his mouth full._

_“You’re probably used to it because you kind of smell of death yourself,” Shin snorted._

_Ai frowned and glared at him. “Right now I smell of anko,” he said, popping another sweet into his mouth._

_Shin frowned and then turned his head slowly. “Did you just make a joke?”_

_Ai grabbed a manju from the box and tossed it to Shin. “That’s a freebie, so shut up.”_

_Shin chuckled and started eating in small bites. The manju was chewy and a bit too sweet for his tastes, but it made for a nice midnight snack. “Where do people who don’t die by magic get buried?”_

_“Mh.” Ai seemed to take his time to think. “I think there’s another graveyard North Hole…”_

_Shin finished his manju and extended his hand towards Ai’s box to grab another._

_“Don’t eat_ my _manjus!” the boy bolted up on his feet._

 _“I brought them to_ share _them!”_

_Shin stood up too, as Ai started running away. “You should’ve specified that from the beginning!”_

-

“He was annoying, rude, a total glutton,” Shin continued, barely realizing they’d already left the graveyard and were now sitting in front of a food cart.

“Not to mention quite the asshole,” Mister Coleman grunted. “One time I asked him to apologize to our neighbor for spilling frying oil on the doorstep and his reply was _Unfuck you or whatever.”_

Shin chuckled. “Sounds like him.”

Noi looked at them, eating quietly. “Sounds like you two were pretty close.”

The old man cackled. “Right. I didn’t recognize you right away but you were that factory kid who was hanging around every night, weren’t you? Thought you died, since I didn’t see you at the funeral.”

Shin’s dim smile immediately vanished. “Sorry I couldn’t make it.”

Kasukabe soon came back, confirming their dread that Ai hadn’t raised as a zombie, his plaque hadn’t been recovered by any of the hunters or priests.

“What are you going to do, Senpai?” Noi asked. “Is he really…?”

Shin was done. He stood up abruptly. “We’re going home,” he said. 

He summoned his Door, causing shock and fear in the surrounding passerbys.

“I’m coming too!” Kasukabe nodded. “If Ai’s alive...I want to see it with my own two eyes.”

“What’re you gonna do if he’s really the Cross-Eyes Boss, Senpai?” Noi quickly caught up to him, wearing her mask.

Shin also put his mask back on. “If that’s the case, I will show no mercy. I _will_ kill him with my own two hands.”

-

Blood splattered on the walls.

En’s severed head, emptied of its Devil tumor. _En was dead, brutally murdered by the Cross-Eyes Boss in his own house._

The corpses of the Cross-Eyes. Fighting them had made Shin’s blood boil and forget for some moments the reason they’d gone there.

When the familiar nauseating feeling hit, _the same feeling as 6 years before, when he first met the man,_ Shin was suddenly reminded who he was supposed to look for. Before he could look around, both him and Noi were enveloped by a thick black smoke.

Painfully quick, mushrooms started to grown from their internal organs, shredding their skin and clothes. _En’s power. How can he use En’s magic?_

As Shin fell, he saw him. A towering figure standing in the doorway, wearing a hood over his face, and smiling at them with a widely inhuman grin.

“You- you’re their Boss-” Shin stuttered as the man _(creature?)_ approached them slowly.

He walked towards Shin as the latter crawled on the ground, his arms and legs already unresponsive, and kneeled in front of him, always wearing the same creepy grin.

Shin’s vision was getting dark but he could finally see his face under the hood. _Truly_ see it for the first time. Black eyes under bushy eyebrows, straight and unruly black hair. That smile had nothing of _Ai’s, so bright and rare,_ but it was definitely his face.

_“When I become a Sorcerer, come with me!”_

_Ai…_

_“Will you be my Partner?”_

The Cross-Eyes Boss opened his mouth to exhale another mouthful of smoke, and just as Shin tried to call his name, he had no more eyes to see, no more mouth to speak.

_"You'll see me again."_


	5. Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: inflation, decapitation, body horror, canon typical gore.**

Rain was soaking through his tattered clothes, ripped and rotten, not so dissimilar from those the zombies wore when they rose from their graves. He looked at his hands, shaking in the cold. Dirt had gathered under his fingernails as he dug his way out of the ground. But Ai wasn’t a zombie, he knew that much. His heart was beating, fast and loudly, lungs drinking greedily the air in.

The gravestone he was standing by had his own name engraved on it.

Shivering, he started to walk away, heading to his apartment door. Those he crossed paths with didn’t seem to care about his appearance and all looked unfamiliar to him.

The apartment door was locked. This didn’t really surprise him, his Grandfather had probably gone peddling.

_ Kasukabe. _

He walked to the clinic just to find the lot where it used to stand empty and for sale.

For a moment he considered walking to Shin’s house, before the events preceding his awakening came back to him.  _ The militia, the posters, the bloody corpse of Shin’s dad. _ He was gone, no point in looking for him.

He stole an empty coffin at the funeral services and tossed it into the hole he crawled out of.

_ I’m a Sorcerer, now.  _ Ai stared at the gravestone.  _ I should go to their world, but how? _

**_I can help you with that._ **

Seized by a sudden and intense pain, Ai grabbed his head and screamed as his bones popped and his flesh teared up. He looked up and his eyes widened in horror as he met the eyes, cross-shaped birthmarks on them, of an exact copy of his own head, wearing a deranged smile.

_ From that moment on, Ai slept. _

In his few moments of clarity, he saw himself lying in a cocoon of mud and blood, in a windowless distorted room. Reality escaped him like rainwater from a drain. And when he was sleeping he had  _ nightmares. _ Nightmares of blood, heads, dust. Nightmares of rain and crossed eyes.

When he finally woke up in what he was certain to be reality, he didn’t recognize his surroundings. It was an unfamiliar apartment, stocked with money and food and clothes that fit his body.

_ His body had changed,  _ he realized even before examining himself in a mirror. He was taller, stronger. His hair was cropped short and spiky.  _ How many years…? _

His train of thought stopped abruptly when his eyes landed on an object sitting on a dresser. A metal and leather mask.

**_This is my gift for you._ **

Ai extended a hand and grabbed the mask. Two pieces: a metal cap and a sort of gas mask, that fit his head perfectly.  _ My mask. _

**_Your mask._ **

_ Because I’m a Sorcerer. _ Ai extended his open hand and held his breath when a stupidly tiny amount of smoke started flowing out. His heart was racing.  _ I’m a Sorcerer. _

**_Of course you are._ **

_ Of course I am. _

**_You’ve always been._ **

_...Haven’t I always been? _

-

The city he lived in was called Zagan. He wasn’t a powerful Sorcerer, but it didn’t bother him too much, what he knew was that he had the means to live a comfortable life in a beautiful world. There were carpets flying in the sky, and self driving buses. Weird animals and wish granting devils.

The only thing he lacked to feel like he truly belonged was a Partner.

_ Didn’t I ask somebody to be my Partner, once? _

He enrolled in a school to perfect his mastery of magic. It didn’t do him much good on that front, but it was a fun and carefree life. And that’s when he really started to forget he ever lived as a human in Hole.

_ Ai Coleman had died and he was slowly forgetting he had ever been him. The man now walking around was… _

“Nice to meet you,” he said to his new classmate. The crosses on his eyes were annoyingly familiar but strangely suited his face. “I’m Aikawa.”

“I’m Risu,” the young man introduced himself with a smile.

That man who would become his Partner.

_ That man who would become his Victim. _

**_That man who would become his Curse._ **

-

Kai had quietly rejoiced when his group had gained control of the En Family mansion. The place was still riddled with Sorcerers and he could barely stand their stench, but these ones were almost powerless and never hurt any human - because they couldn’t, not out of the goodness in their hearts - so he was able to endure their presence.

And their blind devotion was more than a little useful at times.

There was a room in the manor he walked past after disposing of Natsuki’s body, a large room with nasty devil-shaped decorations.  _ Sorcerers have terrible tastes. _

His eyes scanned the many photos hanging on the walls, and from a glance Kai realized this room had to have belonged to one of the cleaners who had come to Hole to dispose of Kaiman. He grinned, laughing at the irony and remembering how easily he had disposed of them.

Until his eyes settled on one of the frame.

The two were smiling, faces bare, and  _ he’d seen his face then but didn’t- _

_ The ghost inside him stirred _ and Kai had to look away from the photo with a grimace.  _ He  _ was a Sorcerer, he was the enemy.

_ So why did he feel a small amount of relief from the fact he hadn’t managed to kill him? _

-

Kaiman wasn’t unhappy. Yes, the amnesia was a bother and seeing a reptilian face in the mirror every single day sucked, but the life he led in Hole wasn’t so bad.

The city of Hole was hell on Earth, but killing Sorcerers gave him a good rush of pleasure, the dopamine flooding his nucleus accumbens made the dangerous fights more entertaining than anything else. And Nikaido was a great friend, the food she cooked was so good it brightened his days. He wished he could just eat her gyoza all day long.

Vaux was a stickler but he treated him frankly, so Kaiman kind of enjoyed his presence. Kasukabe was weird and creepy but also kind, and sometimes it felt strangely  _ normal _ to be around him.

_ Ah, but he really shouldn’t have underestimated those two Sorcerers. _ Especially the one with the heart mask: who could imagine he was so skilled at fighting without using magic?

Seeing Nikaido motionless on the ground made his blood boil like it hadn’t in a very long time as he recklessly charged at the Sorcerer one more time and-

Kaiman woke up on the cold floor of an unfamiliar building. For a moment he wondered if he fell down his bed after another nightmare, but then he looked around and his doubts where shattered.

_ He didn’t notice the hulking shadow fading away in the dark. _

_ What’s going on? _ He could recall fighting zombies during the Night of the Living Dead, collecting plates and eating noodles, until those two sorcerers had appeared.

Kaiman’s hand quickly reached to his head, where he remembered the heart mask guy’s hammer had struck. There was no injury nor pain. _Weird._ _I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a nightmare._

_ Wait? Is this one?  _ He looked around.

Kaiman’s nightmares were often indistinguishable from reality until he woke up, almost as if his own mind was an actual place he went when he slept.

Distracted by the noise of quick running steps on the pavement, he turned around just as Nikaido turned the corner to face him. Kaiman grinned at her, a familiar face is exactly what he needed to ground himself.  _ This is reality. _

“Hi, Nikaido!”

She beamed and greeted him initially, then abruptly stopped, taking a step back with caution, asking who he was. Kaiman didn’t even hide how upset he was, snapping at her.

_ Uh? Where were his plates? Was the night over? _

He felt lighter for some reason, like some weight he’d been carrying around without realizing it had been suddenly lifted, like his mind was cleaner. It would’ve been a nice feeling if he also knew what was going on.

Nikaido was acting aloof too, as they wandered through the halls of the Central Department Store - was it really the Central Department Store? was it always so big and dark? and where was everyone? - she was pensive and quiet and she kept mumbling to herself and asking weird questions.

Suddenly, like she had flipped an internal switch of sort, Nikaido launched an exclamation and  _ grinned. _

“I’m going to tell you everything!” She smiled at him, and her smile was  _ just a tiny bit  _ manic. “About your past and about your face!”

Kaiman was speechless for a moment.  _ “What?!” _

-

Ai thought there had to be a Devil somewhere laughing at the irony of him becoming a ghost himself, haunting the corners of his own mind. As the years passed, he started to feel a separate identity from both Aikawa and Kai, the Cross-Eyes boss, appearing in their dreams in the form of his 15 years old self, first as a headless spectre, then half of his torso was missing.

_ If this goes on everything I am will disappear. _

But part of him had  _ enough _ of running away. He just needed something,  _ anything  _ to prove himself he was  _ real _ , to gain control of his body again.

The man who came to Aikawa’s prison had the Cross marks over his eyes, but looked weirdly familiar. He told him he might have looked younger than he remembered him,  _ he also looked older. _

He called him by his name, he  _ recognized him,  _ and  _ that _ was enough.

“You’re Ai, aren’t you? Ai Coleman?”

Aikawa screamed.

The simple effort of surfacing again, of taking control of his body -  _ not even completely _ \- was too much, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t even stand up, just crawl on the ground. What he  _ could  _ do was  _ show  _ Kasukabe what Kai had been working on. A twisted follow-up of his own research on Devil Tumors, the hallway of severed Sorcerer Heads and the Devil Armor.

_ It’s hopeless. _ Kai took control again and struck Kasukabe down, tossing Ai once more in the deeps of his own mind, sending him forcefully to sleep.

He didn’t wake up until much later, when fate or chance or simply an outlaw Devil created a body that shouldn’t have existed. A body identical as he’d been when he’d lived as Kaiman. With no memories of the past or any link to  _ that being. _ Nikaido had created him from the head severed a year prior. The head severed by  _ Shin. _

That body, created by the unintentional combined effort of Shin, Risu and Nikaido, was the culmination of his bonds with them.

Ai was a ghost now, wasn’t he? Which meant he could possess this new body.

_ It fit like a tailored suit. _

“I’m not Kaiman! I’m Aikawa!” he’d snapped at Nikaido, regretting it moments later before  _ that thing _ dragged her away.. “No, that’s not right I’m…”

_ Who am I?  _ He found himself asking several times. He was Ai, he had his shape when he was incorporeal, that’s how he had appeared to his other selves too. He was Aikawa, he had his memories and his mask, he was Risu’s partner and friend. He  _ was _ Kaiman too _ , _ he knew when Risu mentioned Nikaido’s gyoza. He was the headless creepy ghost at the back of their minds.

But the bonds with those people around him were strong in his own soul. Risu, Aikawa partner. Nikaido, Kaiman’s friend. Kasukabe, the father figure Ai had never realized how much he needed. And he could feel it,  _ he  _ was there,  _ Shin was  _ in that place too. That place that made no sense, that was his mind and at the same time not. The Central Department Store, the lake of refuse.

His grave.

“My real name is Ai Coleman,” he finally confessed to Risu and Kasukabe and, as those words fell out of his mouth, the truth he’d been too stubborn to admit was exposed.

_ That thing controlled me but there was never any “them”. _

_ Aikawa, Kaiman, Kai. “They” were all me. It has always been  _ just me.

“...and I’m human.”


	6. Magic

_ “Are you going to follow me home?” _

_ Ai smirked. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t faint on your way back.” _

_ Shin sighed. He was feeling just a little light-headed, that was all. Ai had asked him for a blood sample for his research and Shin was  _ pretty sure  _ he’d taken more than a pint, unlike what he’d promised. _

_ They walked past a taiyaki stall and Ai didn’t even hesitate to buy half a dozen of them. What took Shin by surprise was how he immediately handed him one. “To replenish your blood sugar.” _

_ “You? Buying  _ me _ food? That’s rare.” Shin mused, biting into it. _

_ “Don’t get used to it.” Ai popped a whole fish-shaped cake into his mouth.  _

_ When they reached Shin’s house it was almost dawn. “Ugh, thankfully it’s Sunday, I can’t imagine going to work in this state.” _

_ Ai stared. “I knew you weren’t well.” _

_ “I’m fine,” Shin shook his head. “I just need some sleep.” _

_ Ai stood in the doorway, not showing any sign he wanted to leave. _

_ “I’m fine, really,” Shin smiled. “You can stay if you want, although I won’t be of much company.” _

_ Ai shook his head. “If you say you’re fine, it’s alright.” _

_ “There’s no need worry,” Shin grinned, before closing the door. “You’ll see me again." _

-

Despite the nightmarish situation he found himself in, Shin was genuinely  _ happy _ when he found his boss alive, and he fought against the strong currents of the rising flow of mud that had quickly risen in the ghost town. At least he wasn’t a zombie possessed by  _ that thing _ anymore.

It would have been great if that Devil had pulled them out instead of showing her benevolence by gifting them new masks and clothes, as they got dragged under.  _ Devils, _ Shin thought,  _ are so damn irritating. _

In the end, everything went well. The current just dragged them in a room where En’s mushroom copies had just finished subduing the monster the Cross-Eyes Boss had turned into. Everyone was there, _alive,_ _Noi_ was there too, albeit clothed in a weird mushroom suit like the rest of the Family.

Now that En could stand on his own, Shin rushed to his Partner’s side. “Noi! Are you ok? After all the things I’ve done…”

“No shit!” She pointed at him, angrily. But he could tell she was smiling under her mask. “I’ll expect payback!”

There was someone approaching the two of them slowly. Shin tensed, squinting at the bulky figure. He was wearing an unfamiliar mask, but the clothes and spikes at the back of his head made his identity unmistakeable. Shin turned towards him, cracking his fingers ready to fight. “Aren’t you the lizard head bastard? Didn’t you die?”

The man stopped in his tracks a few feet away, staring in silence.

“So?” Shin was growing irritated.

“Not quite, although you almost killed… _ me  _ a few times.” He finally spoke. The voice was definitely Kaiman’s but it was weirdly shaky. He raised a open hand to his chest. “This body is a new one, I’m not sure how it was created but it was serendipitous, especially since  _ that thing _ tossed me out of my original one.” He pointed at the swollen mushroom-y mass of the Boss.

Shin darted between the two of them, in growing confusion. “Wha-”

“And it exists because of you! This is the head you cut off!” He chuckled. “Isn’t it ironic that we met again on the Night of the Living Dead? Ah, no we met before that too didn’t we? Sorry, my memories as Kai aren’t as clear as the rest…”

“What the  _ hell _ are you talking about?!” Shin snapped.

“Oh...let’s see...there’s no easy way to explain this.” Kaiman’s body slumped, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and before Shin could react, a wispy figure emerged like white smoke from his back and quickly took a human form under everyone’s shocked eyes.

“Ghost!” Ebisu shrieked, hiding behind En.

“Senpai! That hat!” Noi pointed out, as if Shin didn’t have eyes to see it.

Shin’s nose and eyes were burning and he had to rip his mask off as he just stared, speechless at the figure now smiling melancholically at him. The figure was see-through and stained with blood, but he was otherwise the same as he remembered him.

Ai’s spectral form waved at him. “Hello, Shin.”

“ **Wait, you know each other?!** ” Risu’s floating Curse form was by his side, apparently unperturbed by the ghastly sight.

The ghost sunk back into the body, who came back to life and stretched. “I would love to stay and catch up but there’s something I need to take care of.” He turned towards the remains of the Cross-Eyes Boss, raising the weapon he was holding in his right hand.

En’s eyes widened as he recognized Stoah’s kitchen knife, the holy weapon that could cut even the flesh of a Devil.

“Ai-” Shin snapped out of his shock and extended a hand towards Kaiman’s figure just before the latter swung the blade, causing a whirlwind that knocked everyone backwards. The creature’s neck was cut easily as the head slid out of its massively inflated body and fell to the ground.

_ But it wasn’t over yet. _ From the spray of blood on the Cross-Eyes Boss’ neck, something was emerging. Another head, but unlike the others this one was rotten and broken, barely alive.

Even Ai seemed to reel for a moment at the sight. “Of course,” Shin heard him say as the ghost abandoned the body one last time, flowing towards the monster’s newly sprouted head. “The last head…” Ai’s voice shifted into the hoarse and tired one of his adult self, “is my own head.”

Shin gaped, watching the sight in total confusion.

“Honestly, I have no idea what this is all about,” En commented flatly. Shin had barely realized the head of his family had walked next to him and was now glaring at him. “But you seem to do, so you’ll explain everything to me. Isn’t that right, Shin?”

Shin swallowed and quickly put his mask back on. “I’ll try, but know that I have never kept anything important from you.”

“What about that?” En pointed at the Cross-Eyes Boss.

“Honestly...I don’t really understand how...”

“Shin,” he heard Ai’s call and immediately looked up. Risu was floating right next to him, Stoah’s knife in hand.

There was part of Shin that wanted to scream at them to stop, but at the same time…

“I’m sorry.” Ai said weakly. It was just thanks to everyone’s stunned silence that Shin was able to hear his words at all. “You’ll see me again.”

Shin felt a shiver of dread and ran forward. “Wait!”

With one smooth movement, Risu sliced the air with the knife, sending the last head and the pieces of the other ones tumbling to the ground. Shin ran forward to grab the only one that was still whole, albeit in its sorry state. It was completely lifeless in Shin’s shaking hands.

It was barely recognizable.

He called it  _ my own head. _

Shin wouldn’t have been able to recognize this one at all.

“ **Aikawa told me he had never existed,** ” Risu’s form, cloaked in shadows, descended towards him, still holding the knife. “ **Maybe you knew him while he still did.** ”

Shin glared up, fighting tears. “I have no idea what you’re saying,” he handed him the severed head. “The human boy I knew died a long time ago…”

Risu pointed at Nikaido, busy talking with Kaiman, apparently clueless about the whole deal. “ **Nikaido can show you what Aikawa showed me-** ”

But before they could talk and clear things up, things took a turn for the worse. The Cross-Eyes Boss leader’s body started crumbling down just as his last head apparently came back to life just to tell them it had been  _ his _ plan to gather all the most powerful Sorcerers in one room.

Risu crushed the head and his Curse disappeared just before the lights went out and a strong acid started flowing under their feet, threatening to eat at their flesh. It was just thanks to En that they were saved inside of a giant mushroom puppet. But the puppet had to be renewed constantly as the acid devoured the whole space they were in.

And so it began their resistance. The En Family, plus Risu and the two surviving members of the Cross-Eyes, trapped in darkness for 24 hours as En continually produced smoke to keep them safe, and Noi did the same to prevent En’s body to fall apart.

Sitting in the dark was surprisingly bad for someone like Shin who had just had his life turned upside down by the series of reveals Risu had been spewing about while everyone else but En and Noi were asleep.

“Did you get the gist of it?”

“Somehow…”

Risu sat beside him in silence. For a moment, Shin wondered if he had fallen asleep. But then he spoke again. “What was he like? Young Aikawa…”

“Ai was…” Shin smiled, “so honest he was insensitive most of the time. Kind of rude, even.”

Risu snorted. “Yup.”

“He would have eaten a horse for breakfast if anyone cooked it for him.”

“He stole food from the Zagan school cafeteria even though he didn’t need to since he had paid the fee…” Risu recalled with a smile.

“Uncannily intelligent.” Shin continued. “I once, not kidding, heard him list every single muscle in the human body.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised. I know he stitched his own injuries like a pro when he got hurt. Dude could’ve been a proper doctor if he wasn’t so lazy.”

“Right?! But he only put effort into stuff that he found interesting, didn’t he?” He mused, thinking about what else he could say. “He had a short fuse, especially with people he didn’t like.”

“Oh yeah! You have no idea how many Cross-Eyes he beat to a pulp just because they were approaching me!”

That sentence brought up an unpleasant note, that shut them both up for a while. Ebisu mumbled something about boobs in her sleep. The rubbery sound of the mushroom doll growing was the only background noise.

“He didn’t change much, didn’t he?” Shin wondered. “I wonder if I’d met him while he was a student at Zagan what would’ve I…” he chuckled. “Nah, as if I’d ever go in such a place.”

“I wonder did he mean by  _ you’ll meet me again?” _ Risu asked. “Is he not…?”

Shin sighed. “I think he is. He probably only said that because I used to tell him that all the time.”

“Uhu,” Risu was quiet for a while after that.

“I wonder if the lizard guy’s alive out there…”

“That’s not Aikawa anymore, anyway…” Risu mumbled,  _ definitely _ falling asleep by now.

Shin agreed with him. He had to.  _ And yet those words… _

_ He could only hope. _

-

The funny thing was that he hadn’t even wished to become a Sorcerer in a  _ while. _ As Kaiman, he definitely hadn’t: a lot of Kai’s hate and loathing towards Sorcerers was still very much  _ there _ even now that he was a separate identity from Hole.

So when the bunch of former Devils offered him the chance to become a Sorcerer, he really only took it because there was no other choice. But a part of him that he’d buried for a long time was quietly  _ rejoicing. _

And when that Devil, Chidaruma, asked him  _ why _ he would fight so hard for the sake of Sorcerers his answer was extremely personal. He didn’t want to live  _ hating _ other people anymore.

Shin, Risu, Nikaido were all people extremely dear to him and they were all Sorcerers.

Maybe the Devils created the magic-using race to torment humans, but in making them similar to their foes, they created the basis for a bond that had the potential of being built. It was on that basis that Kaiman fought.

_ It’s time to stop living in fear and loathing. _

He took up arms and used his new powers to single handedly send Hole back in the ground he’d came crawling out of. After all, his newfound magic was  _ absolutely badass. _

-

_ Well, my magic has surely been short lived. _ Kaiman’s magic was lost again, so soon. It was a little depressing. Even though he’d found a way to harness Hole’s powers against itself, the hateful being was much more powerful than a single person.

So it was kind of providential that the bunch of magic users Hole had trapped managed to escape exactly in that moment. They were not going to be useful in combat though, since the place they were in had the same effect as the poisonous rain, amplified a hundred times. Some of them couldn’t even stand up.

But one did.

“Ah!” Kaiman laughed, with the last bit of strength he had left. _ I knew you were alive! _

Shin stood up in front of Hole, with the expression of a man who was just. Fucking. Done.

“You bastard…” Shin stared at Hole’s true form with pure hate. “You’re the one who has been controlling Ai. You’re the one who made me a mindless zombie.  _ I’ll slice your ass up.” _

“ **_KilL...SorCe…_ ** _ ”  _ the being growled. He opened its mouth, extending tendrils towards Shin to grab him.

If the sudden explosion hadn’t destroyed Hole’s Door to the Sorcerers’ world, Kaiman wouldn't have realized what they needed to do to defeat it once and for good.

_ “Shin!” _ he called him. “Slice him up with your magic!”

Shin glanced at him for a fraction of a second, before focusing again on Hole. “Whatever you say…”

And the giant head opened up, showing the silhouette of a tiny sludge Devil.

Kaiman walked towards it with a grin. “Sludge with the corpses of humans killed by Sorcerers soaked in it...Devil tumors snatched from dead Sorcerers...Smoke mixed in with Hole’s rain...after all, that’s what you were. A  _ fucking _ Sorcerer yourself.”

And again they stood there, side by side: a half human half Sorcerer and a human turned Sorcerer turned kind of human again. Two kids who used to meet at night. Two enemies who almost killed each other a number of times.

“Let us free you from this curse called Magic,” Kaiman swung Stoah’s Knife one last time.


	7. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, eight chapters became nine. Still a meaningful number I guess. I took a lot of inspiration from the fancomic Sorcerers and Us 2: Electric Bogaloo for the last three chapters of this fanfic. Go read it, because I consider canon many events that only happen in that one.

Hole had been defeated, the oppressing aura that had been keeping Sorcerers on the ground had been lifted. The cavern where the lake of refuse was no longer bigger on the inside, they could even see the sky from the bottom of it.

For everyone, it was like waking up from a dream.

Except, Nikaido was still dead.

Kaiman looked at the sorry state his friend’s decapitated head was in - partially his fault honestly, he shouldn’t have hauled a ton of boiling oil at Hole when he was still holding it hostage. Devils were powerful but would they be able to do anything at this point?

Risu walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, in an attempt to quietly comfort him, and reminded Kaiman he wasn’t alone. Actually, the entirety of the En family was now waking up around him.

_ Uh, isn’t this bad? _

“A-anyway!” he spoke up so they could hear him, “the rain in your world should’ve stopped by now, you should go back!”

En stood up and glared at him, but thankfully didn’t seem to want to restart hostilities. “Let’s go,” he summoned his door - mushroom shaped of course - and walked through. “We have a mansion to restore.”

“En~! Wait for me!” a disfigured guy ran through the door just after him.

“Must...clothes…” still naked, Ebisu waddled through, probably still in a state of shock. A younger Sorcerer glared at Kaiman like he had something to say as well but sighed and left instead.

One by one the Sorcerers left, everyone except the two Cross-Eyes survivors, who had flown away on the carpet Kaiman had in his backpack, probably to hide from the eventual wrath of the En Family.

And soon the only ones to remain were the two cleaners.

Shin was staring at him.  _ Well, predictably _ since they still hadn’t had the chance to talk. He probably wanted some answers.

“Senpai? Aren’t you coming?” Noi asked him, heading towards the door.

“In a moment, I’ll follow you.” Shin told her without looking at her. Noi glanced at Kaiman and Risu and groaned. She hesitate for a second, then opted to stat and slammed En's door closed.

“Noi?! What are you-”

“I’m not gonna leave my Partner alone with  _ them,  _ duh!” She crossed her arms, standing beside him.

Kaiman laughed. She was the woman smiling in the photos with Shin. “You really found yourself a reliable Partner, haven’t you?”

Shin’s eyes narrowed. “Have you got your memory back?” He asked with a tone that betrayed his tension.

For a moment he considered lying. Let him leave, continue his life.  _ But he’d never been a selfless person.  _ He sighed then simply nodded, taking by surprise Risu as well, who almost jumped on his feet.

“Wait, really?!” Risu exclaimed, genuinely shocked.

“Uh, yeah…”

Unlike Shin, who was keeping an impressive poker face, Risu looked like he was about to cry. “Aikawa…! I thought-”

Kaiman let out an embarrassed laughter. “We have a lot to catch up on, but maybe not at the bottom of a sewage hole.”

Just as he spoke, there was a brief vertigo feeling and suddenly all four of them found themselves in an unfamiliar room.

“Not me!” Kaiman immediately raised his hands, realizing Nikaido’s head had disappeared.

“ **Of course not, you puny mortal!** ”

He turned around to face the array of Devils - now back in their powerful forms - who he’d made a deal with. The group opened to show two smaller figures standing in their midst.

“Kaiman!” Nikaido called with the biggest smile - completely genuine, nothing to do with the creepy one of her demonic high.

_ There’s a lot to catch up with. _

He opened his arms to hug her.

_ But everything is gonna be alright. _

-

Less than an hour later, they all found themselves sitting in the Hungry Bug. The restaurant had thankfully emerged unscathed by Hole’s rampage. The kitchen had sustained more damage in the months it had been abandoned, than recently.

Needless to say, the situation was  _ awkward. _ Especially since Noi had left for the kitchen to see if Nikaido needed some help.

“If you’re going to try dragging me back to En-” Nikaido had started, wary.

Noi shrugged, smiling. “He didn’t seem interested so I guess it’s ok for now. What are you making?”

“Gyoza...it would be useless, you know? I can’t use magic anymore, anyway…” Nikaido still had her guard up. After all, Noi already had beaten her to a pulp  _ twice. _

Noi looked through the opening towards the restaurant tables at the three man sitting there in awkward silence. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

Nikaido peered through the curtain as well. “Beats me. I didn’t even know Kaiman knew your Partner until now.”

“Yeah, apparently they met as kids!”

Nikaido blinked, mouth agape. “Really?!”

“Yup!” Noi grinned. “Heard him talk with Risu when we were trapped inside Holey.”

Nikaido stared. The three looked like they had yet to say a word to each other. “Good grief,” Nikaido sighed. “Hey, I’m making gyoza! How many orders?” She called through the opening.

_ “Ten!” _ Kaiman immediately jumped up. “For me!”

“Ten?!” Risu immediately reacted. “Uh, three for me.”

Shin was taken aback for a moment. “Uh, it’s not really-”

“Make it three for Shin as well, but he eats quickly so serve him last!” Kaiman spoke over him.

Noi burst out laughing, Shin didn’t say anything but Kaiman didn’t miss his thin lipped smile.

“So, is your face gonna stay like that?” he finally spoke when the two women had disappeared into the kitchen again.

Kaiman pointed at himself. “Yeah, I guess so. The Devils said it’s a side effect of them giving me magic…”

“...they did  _ what?!” _ Risu and Shin exclaimed in unison.

“Ah, yeah, I made a deal with them to save Nikaido!”

Shin gaped. “Well, what do you know…” he chuckled and covered his eyes.

“So, what magic did you get?” Risu leaned forward, squinting at him.

“Gyoza magic!” he exclaimed excitedly. “But I can’t use it anymore for some reason…”

Risu slammed his face on the table, Shin sighed. “Uhh-”

“What?!”

_ “Gyoza _ magic?!”

“Yeah! It was great, I made all kinds of-”

Nikaido slammed a giant plate full of gyoza on the table. “Don’t rush. Don’t talk, it’s better to clear things up with a full belly!”

“That was incredibly fast!” Kaiman commented.

Risu squinted at her, then shrugged and popped the first Gyoza into his mouth.

-

Night fell silent on the city of Hole. The full moon shone brightly in a clear night sky.

There were still smoke-riddled clouds floating around, it would take a while for them to clear completely, that was if Sorcerers stopped coming to Hole to practice, which wasn’t guaranteed.

Shin realized he’d briefly fallen asleep because it was dark outside. He could see Noi and Risu’s shapes in the dark, but no sign of Nikaido or Kaiman. He quietly stood up and walked outside the restaurant. The two of them were sitting just outside, talking in hushed tones.

“What was in those Gyoza?” Shin asked, getting their attention. “The other two are out cold,” he pointed at the two inside.

“I made these when I was becoming a Devil, so they have a bit of a side effect. Couldn’t bring myself to throw them out, though.” Nikaido stood up and headed inside. “I’ll start cleaning up.”

Kaiman was looking up. Shin hesitated a moment before sitting beside him.

“I missed you.”

It was hard to read his expression now, but it was definitely a smile on Kaiman’s face. “I know.”

_ And for a moment it felt like the decade hadn’t passed at all. They were still two kids sitting side by side in the night, not even exchanging a word, just feeling at ease in each other’s presence. _

-

Later that night, they visited Hiro’s grave. Kasukabe and Vaux had apparently paid the priests a conspicuous sum of money to have a grave built for a man considered a traitor, and it had been Vaux himself to tell the two where to find it.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” Shin said, leaving the flower vase he just bought on the gravestone. Not having been killed by magic, he never rose as a zombie and Shin was  _ extremely _ grateful of that.

“No prob, I’m glad to be here as well.”

“Is your grandfather still alive?”

Kaiman groaned under the gas mask he’d put back on earlier. “Yeah...but I don’t think I’m ready to see him yet.”

“I met him before this whole mess,” Shin said. “He seemed to miss you a lot.”

“Well, it would’ve been better if he showed any sign he cared when we still lived together.” He shrugged, speaking in a tone that betrayed how annoyed he really was. “Besides, it’s better if he believes I’m dead.”

“Eh…” Shin coughed awkwardly. “He knows you’re not,” he said quickly, under his breath.

Kaiman turned towards him. “Uh?!”

“Sorry. We...kind of dug up your coffin?” He explained with a smile that had nothing of apologetic to it.

_ “...Why?!” _ He started gesticulating wildly in Shin’s face out of disbelief.

“Because we wanted proof you weren’t the Cross-Eyes Boss you dumb idiot!” Shin snapped, pushing his head away. “Kinda backfired...”

“Ugh, this is annoying!” Kaiman sighed and let himself fall sitting on the ground.

Clouds had already covered the moon. The silence would have felt unnatural in any other occasion, but people were probably still reeling from the chaos of the previous day. The oncoming rain was probably still going to hurt Sorcerers for years: Hole’s hatred and influence hadn’t disappeared, he could  _ feel _ it, but at least it didn’t have a physical form anymore.

“You should leave soon,” he told Shin, without looking at him, “or at least Noi and Risu should.”

Shin glanced at him, then up and started laughing when he realized what he meant. “You could always tell.”

“I don’t know why,” Kaiman mumbled. “Always had a connection with Hole, I guess, even before he possessed my body.”

At that sentence, mentioned so casually, Shin couldn’t help but  _ cringe. _ “I guess…” 

Shin recalled when that entity made him into a sludge zombie in the warped Central Department Store. He’d seen his father there, but it was hard to say if he’d become part of the grudge that made up Hole or was simply an hallucination caused by Shin’s possession.

“It felt like being trapped in a nightmare…”

Kaiman sat up, looking at him.

“Suffocating in quicksand, no matter how forcefully I tried to escape it seemed to close around me…” Shin’s eyes were closed as he spoke. “My actions were not my own, but I could see through my own eyes and feel my body moving.” He opened his eyes. “Was it like that for you?”

Kaiman groaned. “As Kai... _ most _ of the time...yessn’t…?” He said, making a so-so gesture with his hand.

Shin gave him a blank stare that looked _just a tiny amount murderous._ _“What?”_

“Were you expecting an outright yes? Because-” He stood up, starting to back away as Shin advanced slowly. “Yeah, no point hiding it, that’s the whole…” he stumbled on a gravestone and fell backwards, knocking his head on a gravestone. “Ah! My spikes!” He felt the back of his head. “They’re bent  _ again!” _

Shin’s anger dissipated immediately. After a moment in which he just blinked in confusion, he sighed and passed a hand over his face. “Let’s go back, I’ll bring Noi back home.”

“But you’ll be back?” Kaiman stood up.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Shin turned around, grinning. “You’ll see me again.”

-

Things had been hectic in the Sorcerers’ world. The population had been  _ halved  _ by the long rain and many of those who survived were on the brink of starvation and dehydration when the poisonous rain stopped. Hospitals and graveyards were built quickly, restaurants and catering were suddenly the most vital industry, healing magic was in high demand, many buildings had collapsed and needed to be repaired or rebuilt.

For the first time in centuries, though, the Sorcerer society was  _ united. _ There wasn’t any distinction between strong and weak magic, and even former Cross-Eyes turned up at En’s mansion to help with the rebuilding.

Shin didn’t miss his old days as a Cleaner: he travelled the country with Noi, he was En’s eyes and ears for those who needed his guidance from far away. He preferred travelling: during the time he spent at the Mansion, he was in a constant state of lowkey panic.

_ “It’s been seven months, he won’t punish you at this point!” _ Noi had said, as if she had anything to worry about. She was En’s cousin, his actual family, not to mention literally impossible to kill.

Shin had exposed his connection with the  _ former _ Cross-Eye Boss and En wasn’t going to ignore it. He expected being called in for questioning every time he was home, and knew it was only because of the current situation that En was willing to let it slide.

Without him realizing, it had already been more than half a year since he’d last been to Hole, and it was like living on a tightrope. He wanted  _ something _ but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what, he was  _ afraid  _ of something but couldn’t explain. The life he once would’ve cherished was  _ agony. _

And when Shou came to his room, saying En wanted to talk  _ in private _ with him and Noi, it was a cold shower for Shin, even though he’d been expecting it.

“You know,” the old assassin spoke as they walked together through the corridors, “he’s not going to punish you.”

“Because I’m valuable to the family?” Shin deadpanned.

“No,” Shou stopped, “because he’ll  _ overlook _ your relationship with that man.”

Shin also stopped in his tracks, watching his senior in confusion.

“I did tell you I can alter memories, well, that was an oversimplification. I can make people  _ ignore _ some connections and thought, just like I can make myself and others invisible.”

Shin was at the same time relieved and  _ utterly outraged.  _ “I can’t believe you’d do that to En.”

Shou shrugged and restarted walking. “Right now, what this world needs is a leader focused on its restoration. Both Nikaido and the Cross-Eyes Boss are powerless right now, there's no point pursuing them.”

They reached the door to En’s office, where Noi had already been waiting for them.

“Also, you’re a valuable member of our family, Shin. We can’t afford you to be a weak link.” Shou concluded, waving at her.

“...thank you.” Shin sighed, looking at the close door. Noi put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him before opening it and walking in.

“Did you want to see us?”

En was standing by the window, petting Kikurage who was sleeping in his arms. “Come on in, I have a job for the two of you.”

Noi briefly smiled at Shin, as if to say  _ See, this was a normal job after all- _

“I need you to go to Hole.”

_ Well, fuck. _


	8. Want

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
>  I can’t believe I had to get to the last two chapters before writing the actual romance between these two FOOLS.   
>  _
> 
> _  
> This chapter references events that happen in SaU2:EB.  
> _
> 
> _  
> I ended up making an epilogue because the chapter was becoming too long.  
> _

Nikaido liked how the restaurant looked. The whole city had slowly started to change since the event. Since many Sorcerers died, back in their world, most of the hexed people had gone back to normal. Where the Central Department Store once stood, the Church of Hole had been built.

She couldn’t even go _near_ it without feeling sick. The votive statuettes sold by the priests had enough power to knock down any Sorcerers near to it. Only Kaiman seemed to be immune to their effect. They made up an efficient defensive weapon against any rogue Sorcerer that still wanted to cross over to _play,_ and thanks to that, society in Hole was on the way to rebirth.

The beautifications projects were finally going _somewhere_ and even Nikaido’s shop looked much better with its new colorful sign. _Life was good._

She was finishing the preparations for the dinner rush, together with Asu, when the bell above the door jingled. Dokuga and Tetsujo, who had been setting up the tables, immediately tensed and backed against the wall. Risu stopped scrubbing the floor and set the mop aside, not that he looked threatening with a dirty apron on.

“Ahh, I knew they were here…” Shin sighed as he and Noi walked in, masks on. “Don’t worry we’re not here to fight. That is, if you’re gonna stay still and listen to our terms.”

Dokuga frowned and Nikaido could see him reaching for a knife behind his back. “Everybody stop!” She walked out of the kitchen.

“Hi, Nikaido!” Noi waved at her.

“Hi. I mean, what are you doing here?" She eyed Asu, who nodded. In the worst case he was ready to teleport the two former Cross-Eyes lieutenants out.

“Like Shin said,” Noi pointed at him. “En caught wind of some Cross-Eyes living in Hole and wanted to make sure they wouldn’t antagonize him.”

-

_En opened a small leather case in front of the two. It contained six small mushrooms, neatly sealed each in a small glass bottle. “I’ve just finished designing these,” he announced, his voice tinted with pride. “The spores of these little chanterelles are virtually immortal and they will quickly start growing when in contact with the air of this world.”_

_Noi and Shin looked at the vials, mildly confused._

_“If the Cross-Eyes are still alive, have these implanted in their body in one way or the other. They will be harmless as long as they stay in that dismal city.”_

Does that include their Boss? _Shin was dying to ask, but had to bite his tongue._

 _“Also, make sure to bring compensation to the hospital that served my family as a base of operation during the crisis,” En waved a hand casually. “Far be it from me to let_ humans _feel like I owe them a debt.”_

_Noi grinned. “That’s so kind of you.”_

_En glared at her. “Go, and don’t waste too much time in that miserable city.”_

-

“So that’s basically how it went,” Noi showed them the case as she finished telling them about it.

Dokuga frowned, not entirely convinced. Risu crossed his arms. “Does that include me?”

“Well, you’ve helped with the reconstruction and-” Noi stopped mid-thought, pointing at Asu and Risu in quick succession. “Hold on! Weren’t the two of you training to become Devils? You were at the costume party!”

Risu groaned and looked away, Asu dropped his head in his hands as if crying. “They failed us…”

“Failed?!” Shin and Noi asked in unison.

“Apparently, you need a majority vote from the Devils to become one, now that Chidaruma isn’t leader anymore. But, back to the main topic...” Nikaido explained, not willing to let the change in subject make her drop her guard.

“Yeah, En wasn’t very specific about it. I’d say Risu is fine…” Noi wondered. “Ah, but the two of them are definitely who he meant,” she pointed at Dokuga and Tetsujo.

Nikaido walked up to them. “Look, the choice is yours but if you decide to stay, know you’ll always have a place here.”

“Like we really have a choice,” Dokuga sighed. “I really don’t feel like fighting.”

“Well said!” Noi threw each of them a bottle with a mushroom. “Just eat or breath or whatever that mushroom and we’re done here!”

Dokuga stared at his bottle pensively. “What about that guy…?”

Risu turned towards him. “Yeah, what about Kaiman?”

Nikaido didn’t miss the knowing look Noi and Shin exchanged. “En didn’t say anything about him, so…”

“Figures,” Dokuga sighed and popped open the bottle. Immediately, a tiny cloud of dust popped out and made him cough. Tetsujo ran to his side but the cloud dissipated almost immediately. “I’m fine.”

After a moment, Tetsujo followed in his comrade’s footsteps. “Disgusting,” he made a face when the cloud of spores vanished.

“That’s great! Now we don’t have to kill you anymore!” Noi slammed a hand on each of their shoulders. “We can all be friends!”

“...No, thanks.”

“Where’s _that guy_ anyway?” Shin tried to ask casually.

“Kaiman?” Nikaido smiled. “He still helps out at the hospital, out of rush hours. You’ll probably find him there.”

Shin grabbed the heavy looking duffel bag Noi had been carrying around. “That’s perfect then, two birds with one stone.”

“If you’re going, bring this with you too,” Nikaido handed him a bag with a bento box tightly packed inside. Shin sighed and grabbed that as well.

“You go say hi, Senpai!” Noi laughed, taking off her mask and sitting at one of the tables. “I don’t mind having more of those delicious Gyoza in the meantime!”

“Sure,” Shin was surprisingly quick to turn around and walk out the door.

“Ah!” Nikaido ran after him, standing on the doorway. “Take off your mask when you walk around!”

“...Right.” Shin didn’t stop but did as she suggested him, just before taking a turn and disappearing from her sight.

Nikaido walked back in just to see Risu and Asu busy chuckling, and even the two Cross-Eyes were smirking. “Wha-?”

“We probably should’ve told him about _that,_ no?” Risu glanced at a completely confused Noi.

“No, no, this is perfect,” Asu slapped his arm, bursting out laughing. “Hell, I want to see his reaction _so bad!”_

“What is happening?” Noi looked at Nikaido with a certain amount of concern.

Nikaido sighed, but she was smiling too when she understood what they were talking about.

-

Part of Shin had expected the hospital to have remain unchanged, but this wasn’t the case. The entire front of the building had been rebuilt and repainted, in a bright shade of white. There was a new car park and even some sad attempt at a flowerbed with a “Hole Beautification Project” sign planted in the middle of it.

There was even a welcoming desk with an old nurse watching tv inside. She barely noticed Shin walking in and he decided not to bother with her at all, heading instead to the upper floors, hoping to run into Vaux or Kaiman himself.

It was the bald doctor he ran into first. He was talking with an older guy who had less teeth in his mouth than moles on his face.

“You almost gave me a heart attack!” Vaux exclaimed when he saw Shin standing in the doorway.

Shin dropped the duffel bag on a nearby table. “I hope this is enough compensation for helping the En Family during the crisis.” He zipped the bag open under Vaux’s dumbstruck expression: it contained a fair number of solid gold bars from the mansion vault.

“Holy -! Is this real…?” Vaux grabbed one bar with extreme caution.

“With this we’re even. Where is the lizard head guy?”

“Uh...upstairs, rooftop,” Vaux answered absentmindedly. It was only when Shin had already left that he snapped out of it. “Oh, but he’s not- ah, nevermind…”

-

Shin was about to open the door to the hospital rooftop when said door swung inwards, almost hitting him on the face.

“Oh, hi Shin! It’s been a while!”

Shin blinked and looked down at Kusakabe. “Doctor! You’re alive?!”

“How rude, I’ve never been better.” Kusakabe laughed. “My wife took good care of me!”

Shin was caught by surprise by this sentence and had to take a few moments to process it. “Your wife.”

“Yes? You met her and all!” Kasukabe looked a bit offended, hands deep in his lab coat pockets. “Haru.”

A fast sequence of confused and horrified expressions crossed Shin’s face until he finally exploded. “ _HAru_ is your _wife?!”_

Kasukabe burst out laughing.

“Hey! I know that voice!” there was a rushing noise of fast footsteps approaching and the door that had already been closing was slammed open one more time. “Shin! You’re back”

Shin looked up, still reeling from the recent revelation, and had to blink for a few times to realize what he was seeing.

_That smile, so preciously bright and rare._

The face he’d already given up on seeing again, that he half-expected to trigger painful memories but had surprisingly little in common with the cruel one he remembered.

Kaiman slammed a hand on Shin’s shoulder. “What are you doing? Gawping doesn’t become you!”

“Ai...your face-”

“Ohh! That’s right! You didn't know!” He beamed, pointing at himself. “Haru’s freebie! ...or punishment? Never understood why Devils do stuff, but it feels good to have it back!”

“I’ll let you two catch up,” Kasukabe waved at them as he walked down the stairs.

Shin felt an arm slide around his shoulders and pull him backward. “I’m not letting you go back until you tell me everything! What took you so long?”

Shin was speechless. Ai hadn’t been... _handsome_ as a kid, he was too lanky and puberty hadn’t done him any kindness, but now that Shin could see him, _finally, properly_ see him after 14 years, he’d certainly grown up to be stunning, at least in Shin’s eyes. And without any of his alternate personalities and the whole Cross-Eyes deal to put up a wall between them, he didn’t know what to think. He just knew his heart was going to burst out of his chest.

-

“Doc said this body of mine became that of a Sorcerer, properly,” Kaiman explained later, as the two of them looked at the traffic below from the rooftop. “But my Devil tumor has been cut straight in two.” He tapped his own forehead.

Shin glared up, slightly horrified. “That would’ve killed any normal Sorcerer…”

He blinked. “Would it?! Guess I’m lucky, then!”

“I wouldn’t call it _lucky…_ ” Shin had calmed out a little but still was uncharacteristically nervous.

“But enough about me! How’re things on your side?”

Shin sighed, before telling him everything he knew about En’s effort to restore the Sorcerers’ world. There was a glimpse of shame in Kaiman’s eyes when Shin told him about the number of casualties.

“Food-creating magic being more expensive than healing one, it’s unheard of,” Kaiman commented, eating from the bento box Shin had delivered. “I bet with everyone’s effort in it, it won’t take long for the Sorcerer’s world to be as beautiful as before.”

Shin nodded, an idea starting to be born in his head. “Do you ever...think of coming back?”

_I want..._

His answer didn’t come immediately, Shin almost thought he hadn’t heard him at all.

“I don’t know,” he admitted in the end, putting down his chopsticks. “I’d like to visit, that’s for sure. As for live in it…” he shrugged. “I can’t even use magic anymore, it would be pointless.”

“I thought you hated this world,” Shin glanced at the depressing view. Half collapsed buildings, scaffolding and factories everywhere, not a bit of vegetation in sight.

“I did, didn’t I?” he sighed with a bittersweet smile. “I certainly used to, and I can’t help but wonder if I’d have continued hating it if none of _that mess_ ever happened in the first place.”

Shin huffed with a small smile. “Where would we be?”

“Mmh,” Kaiman looked up, thinking about it. “You’d probably have your own carpenter workshop, taking care of your dad.”

Shin blinked in surprise. He didn’t realize that with _that mess_ he’d been talking about him.

“I would...I don’t know,” Kaiman admitted. “If you had stayed around I don’t think I would’ve jumped in the lake in the first place. Ah, I would’ve probably still carried out the surgery, though, and it would’ve likely killed me.”

“...and if you hadn’t?”

He looked at Shin. “I would’ve probably grown up still hating this city…” he grinned, “maybe I’d have gone to Med school like Doc…”

“Aha!” Shin quietly exclaimed. _I knew it._

“In the end, I didn’t become any of the things I wanted,” he continued, without giving any sign he’d heard him. “But of one thing I’m sure. Right now, _I love this city._ ”

Shin stopped smiling.

“I like helping at Nikaido’s restaurants, I love hanging out with her and Risu. I like the yearly baseball game without any real rules…and I like to spend time with you!”

“I…” Shin started quietly. “Used to think Hole was alright,” he looked away. “But this is the city that killed my mother, tortured my father and hunted me down. I can’t forgive it…” he clenched his fists.

Kaiman smiled and walked up to him, patting his back. “Sounds like our ideas got switched,” he let out an awkward chuckle. “I’m fine with you continuing to live as a Sorcerer, actually, I’m proud of you! Just...try to visit more often, alright?”

_That’s not what I want..._

Shin tensed up. _That won’t do it._ “Don’t you miss your magic?”

He blinked. “Gyoza Wand? Sometimes,” he shrugged. “Why?”

_What I want is..._

Shin took a deep breath before turning to face him. “Come with me, there’s something I need to do before leaving.”

-

They’d gone back to the Hungry Bug on Kaiman’s motorbike. Shin had gone in first, while Kaiman was still parking, and immediately headed towards Noi’s table. His Partner was having a seemingly friendly chat with Nikaido in front of a huge plate of fried rice, when Shin put a hand on her shoulder. “Out. Now. We need to talk.”

Noi blinked, mouth still full. “Good grief,” she sighed. “Alright.”

Shin walked back out just after Kaiman opened the door. “I’ll explain, just wait inside for now…”

His eyes darted between him and Noi, who just ignored him for just a brief second before stopping and pointing. “Ah!”

 _“Later,_ I said!” Shin forcefully dragged her inside.

“What was that all about?” Nikaido approached Kaiman, watching the two have an animated discussion from inside the shop.

“Beats me,” Kaiman shrugged.

“So, how did he react?” Risu and Asu approached them from behind, a smug grin on both of their face.

Before he could reply, something caught everyone’s attention. 

They watched as Shin put a hand on the side of Noi’s face and emitted a plume of black smoke. Under everyone’s terrified eyes, Noi’s head split open in segments and the woman fell to the ground.

Kaiman was the first to rush outside, just as Shin kneeled down to pluck something out of her brain. “Shin! What the fuck?!”

“She’ll be alright, we agreed on this…” Shin deadpanned.

Noi’s smoke was already enveloping her head, quickly putting her back in one piece. When she’d healed completely, a few seconds later, she stretched with a big smile. “Finally, my head was feeling heavy!”

"Thank the Devil the second one didn't break." Shin opened his hand, holding a very tiny metal vial in the shape of a snake.

“What’s that?” Kaiman asked just as everyone else rushed outside.

“Holy Seven Circles of Hell!” Asu exclaimed when he saw the vial. “You had something like that?!”

“Do you know what that is?” Nikaido asked him.

Asu nodded. “It’s a Resurrection Vial, it’s capable of… _oh.”_ He looked at Kaiman and Shin in quick succession. “Oh!”

Shin gently held the object, smaller than a nail, between his index and thumb and put it into Kaiman’s hand. “If you ask Kusakabe to use this on your Devil tumor, you should be able to use magic again. You don’t have to immediately, there’s still three years before the next one...” he exclaimed, under everyone’s shocked gaze.

Kaiman blinked, not moving a muscle, silent for a few seconds until he looked up, straight in Shin’s eyes. “No, thanks.”

Everyone screamed in disbelief, including Shin, who took a step back. “What?!”

Kaiman crossed his arms. “Have you listened to a word I’ve said? I’m fine the way I am,” he waved a hand. “Honestly, I would’ve been fine with a lizard head too, if Kasukabe hadn’t pestered Haru about it.”

Shin clenched his fists. “You…”

“I really don’t understand what the big deal is. We were friends when I was fully human and you didn’t seem to have a problem with it!”

“Wait...three years? The next one? You don’t mean…” Risu was starting to put the pieces together.

“Uh? What?” Kaiman looked back at him.

Shin gritted his teeth and turned around, summoning his door in the middle of the road. “We’re leaving, Noi!”

“Ah, I haven’t finished my fried rice!” She ran after him. “Sorry, Nikaido! I’ll be back soon!” She waved at them just before the door slammed close.

“...what was that all about?” Kaiman sighed at the fading door. When he turned around, he saw everyone was looking at him with some measure of shock and confusion. “...What?”

“He was asking you to be his Partner on the next Blue Night,” Asu deadpanned, voicing everyone’s thoughts. “Quite the roundabout way to say it but wow.”

Kaiman’s eyes widened. He turned around towards the point where the door used to stand, and back at the group. “...what?!”

“You didn’t understand?!” Risu put both hands on his shoulders.

“Seriously! What about Noi?” Nikaido asked.

“She seemed fine with it,” Asu shrugged. “Well, Kaiman refused anyway, so that’s it. Back to work?” He headed back towards the shop, where the two Cross-Eyes had been watching the group from.

Kaiman opened his hand, looking at the vial. “Partner…” he repeated. Looking up, Risu was looking at him.

Risu sighed, stepping back, hands on hips. “It’s alright, it’s your choice anyway.”

Kaiman nodded, before closing his fist and hopping back on his motorbike. “Nikaido! I might stay away for a while, sorry about it!”

“Don’t worry,” she smiled at him, knowingly. “Take care.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the finale.


	9. Whole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, at the end.
> 
> I don't know if I'll write more of this series, maybe if I receive some reviews...
> 
> For the time being, enjoy this ridiculous ending.
> 
> _And don't forget to click on the link in the story to open Flavia's amazing fanart!_
> 
> _If the rest of the fic could’ve been read as non-romantic, this chapter definitely heaves on the romantic side, especially at the end. I’m not sorry, that was the intention from the very beginning._

Shin had been more restless since he’d come back from Hole, En could tell. After they’d sacrificed everything to bring him back to life, he realized his subordinates were more than mere servants. This time around, he was going to take care of his Family properly, so that no more harm could come to them.

 _There was something about Shin,_ nagging at En from the back of his mind, that made him uneasy, but it was shushed quickly everytime the man completed his job efficiently.

After the Cleaners had come back, and reported having found two Cross-Eyes generals, he was especially pleased they had solved the situation easily, so he was pretty surprised when he found Noi sitting in Kikurage’s garden, head in one hand, absentmindedly playing with the small beast.

“Noi? What’s wrong?”

She lifted her head, and groaned when she saw who was talking to her. “Oh, it’s just you, En.” She huffed. “Nothing, I was just wondering…”

En lifted Kikurage in his arms. “What?”

“Is Blue Night still going to happen in three years?”

“Absolutely,” En replied. “By then, I plan the restoration to be over, and the Sorcerers’ world needs something to feel back to normal.” He looked down at her, she didn’t seem to be heartened by his words.

_I must to do something to cheer her up._

-

Aikawa’s mask was no good. Even if just a replica, the mere sight of it brought a whole series of unpleasant feelings in his stomach. Wearing any of the masks at Kasukabe’s place was also not an option: really too distasteful and someone might have recognized them. None of his own old masks fit him anymore, and he couldn’t just waltz back into the Sorcerers’ world with his face bare, but asking Haru to make one felt just... _wrong._

“Maybe you can use this one,” Kasukabe suggested, after hearing his dilemma, as he dug through one of his cupboards. It was a leather mask covering only the lower half of one’s face, paired with a baseball hat tied to a pair of headphones and bunny ears.

“Doctor this…” Kaiman looked at the makeshift mask, then looked up. “This looks terrible.”

Kasukabe burst out laughing. “Sorry, Ai. It’s the only one I’ve got!”

Grumbling, Kaiman put it down. “If I go over there with this mask, Shin’s gonna kill me for good.”

Kasukabe smiled and lit up a cigarette. “When you brought me here from the hospital in a hurry, I wasn’t expecting this...” He dug through his pockets and grabbed the tiny vial, examining it under the light of a lamp. “Are you sure you don’t want to use it?”

“I’m sure.”

Kasukabe looked up with a smug smile. “Does that mean I can study it?”

_“No!”_

-

The main shop plaza in the En mansion was lively and full of life: it was the first place they’d rebuilt after the rain stopped. Unlike in the past, the gates were open to anyone who wanted to come in, either to help and be helped.

En had said that society needed to go back to normal but Noi had a feeling this _normal_ was going to be different than before.

Wandering around, she spotted Fujita yelling at some goons about not using magic to glue bricks together, and Ebisu next to him poking one of the workers with a stick. She smiled and walked by them.

“Miss Noi!”

_Or not…_

“Hey,” she turned around, waving at them with a smile. “How’s it going?”

“Could you please tell them the building’s just gonna collapse in a few years if they use magic instead of concrete?!” Fujita begged her.

Noi sighed and glared at the workers, who almost jumped out of their suits. “Yes, ma’am…” they sighed in unison, before getting to work again.

“Thank you, Miss Noi…” Fujita sighed in relief.

Ebisu approached the taller woman, starting to poke her with her stick. “Noi is sad…”

Fujita immediately dragged her away. “Stop doing that, what’s wrong with you?”

“It’s alright,” Noi waved a hand at them. “Say, have you seen Shin around?”

“Mr. Shin? I think he went out in the city a while ago…” Fujita blinked. “Why, can’t you find him through your contract?”

 _It doesn’t mean I want to._ She gave him a tight lipped smile. “Thanks,” she turned and began walking away. “Keep up the good work.”

-

Shin missed the days as a Cleaner. In the past, he could’ve smashed some heads to vent and distract himself from these annoying feelings.

But right now, with nothing to do, they were buzzing in his brain like a swarm of annoying wasps: _Ai’s smile, his “No, thanks”, his determination to stay in Hole…_

He couldn’t think about anything else, and it pissed him off.

Part of him just wanted to go back, to ask again, _but he knew the answer would be the same,_ so what was the point? Part of him wanted to get _rid_ of those thoughts, to keep on living like he always had, and maybe he would’ve been able to if Haru hadn’t given Ai his face back. It would have been easier to build a wall in that case.

 _That damn Devil knew_ exactly _what she was doing._ Devils don’t give out gifts out of the goodness of their heart.

If only Shin hadn’t seen that smile again, those eyes that weren’t actually black but just a very rich brown under the sun…

Shin’s heart was racing. He had to stop walking and lean against the wall, one hand covering his mouth. There was no mirror but he could just _tell_ his own face was bright red, and the realization hit him like a freight train.

_“...Shit.”_

-

Leatherworks had never been his strong suit, but together with Kusakabe, Kaiman had been able to craft a semi-decent mask. It was a black leather one, with canvas inserts and filters on both sides, that covered only the lower half of his face and tied back with a leather strap. It was modest, but necessary in a world where covering your face was the norm.

 _One more reason to prefer Hole,_ what was the point of hiding your face at all times anyway? Sorcerers had really weird traditions.

“So, I’m going.” He announced, standing in front of Kusakabe’s artificial door.

Kasukabe gave him a little pouch. “This contains the few Nicks I got last time I was there. It’s not much but you should be able to buy some food.”

“Oh, yes, _thank you!”_ Kaiman cried, grabbing the pouch. “I’m starving, I should’ve asked Nikaido to pack me lunch…”

“I can call her still…”

He shook his head. “It’s ok, I was thinking about saying hello to Tanba anyway, I’ll buy lunch at their place...if it’s still standing.” Putting the hood of his jacket up, he turned towards the door. “See you, Doc.”

-

Noi found Shin sitting on a bench at the park. Her Partner was sitting, eyes vacant, in front of a pond. She quietly sat down beside him, but he didn’t even acknowledge her presence.

“Did I...disappoint you as a Partner?” She wondered out loud.

Shin blinked and looked up at her. “What? No?!” He straightened up. “Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind.” He passed a hand over his face.

Noi sighed. “You know, it’s ok. I just wish you’d have told me sooner…”

“You didn’t disappoint me,” Shin sighed, smiling at her. “You _are_ an amazing Partner, and I wish we continued to work together.”

Noi looked back at him, confused. “You asked _him_ to be your Partner at the next Blue Night!”

Shin groaned. “Yes,” he admitted. “But that was an impulsive action. That’s not what I want.”

A chilly breeze went through the trees, shaking the leaves and making the few passerbys shiver.

“What do you want, Shin?”

“I-”

A familiar voice boomed from down the path, making both of them turn around. “Ah! There you are!” En exclaimed, escorted by two armed goons. Several passersby stepped back and started talking in awe and a little bit of fear, as this was En’s first appearance in public since his resurrection. “I’ve been looking for the two of you. Come with me.”

Shin stood up impassible like nothing had happened. “Another job?”

“No, I thought you might be stressed, after all the work,” En announced. “So I decided to offer you dinner in one of my restaurants.”

“As long as the food isn’t actually people turned into mushrooms,” Noi pointed at him with a disgusted face.

He looked both smug and somewhat offended. “I don’t waste anything. Come.” En beckoned to them and gestured to follow.

-

The extent of the damage to the capital city of the Sorcerers’ world was very obvious once Kaiman stepped through the door: collapsed buildings, broken roads.

“Ah, this place doesn’t look too different from Hole now, does it?” he noted with a smirk, looking around. No carpet ride taxis in sight this time around, he would’ve to walk.

The school was still standing, even though it looked closed, but it just made him feel nauseous to look at the building, so he steered away quickly. He rejoiced when he saw Tanba’s Meatpies was not only open but had a small crowd of people in front of it.

“I’ll have five!” he exclaimed when he’d reached the front of the line. Serving people at the counter was Kirion, the silent employee Kaiman had never exchanged a word with, and Tamba’s ex, the woman with the bat mask. “Is the President here?”

“Are you Tanba’s acquaintance?” the woman eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t know you.”

“Just an old part-timer,” he scratched the back of his head, as he paid. “Just wanted to say hello.”

The woman sighed. “You are blocking the line. Tanba’s at the En manor.”

Oh right, they had established a small branch shop there, Kaiman remembered. Well, that’s where he was likely to find Shin anyway. “I’ll go say hi!” He waved at them just to stop after a few steps. “Oh, just in case I don’t see them, thank Fukuyama for turning me into a pie!”

“Uh?!” the woman grimaced at him, but before she could ask any question, Kaiman had already ran away.

“Now, then…” he lowered the mask and started eating, while walking towards the huge building. “Let’s do this.”

-

Shin browsed the menu, eyes wide with a certain amount of fear. “This is…”

“2500 Nicks for a Steak dinner?! Why is this place so expensive?!” Noi exclaimed, having had a similar reaction once they had opened the menu.

“Don’t worry about the price,” En said, “my treat.”

Noi glared up at him. “That’s what concerns me…”

Shin sighed and put down the menu. “Mr. En, what is this all about?”

En swirled a glass of wine, sitting across from them at the table. “I am just concerned for the wellbeing of my two best employees, so I decided to give you a day of enjoyment. Please, do eat at your heart's content.”

Shin squinted for a moment, unsure if En was honest or not. A waiter approached, and Shin reread the menu quickly. “I’ll have a-”

“Also,” En continued as the two of them were ordering their food. “Later tonight, you two are coming to me at the Première of my biography movie. I finally finished it and I think it’s time to share it with the public. Please dress accordingly.”

“I knew there was a catch…” Noi groaned, but when she glanced at Shin, she realized he was gripping the table so tightly his knuckles had turned white. “Senpai…”

-

Kaiman managed to be surprised every single time about how lax the security around En’s manor was: including this one, he’d already successfully infiltrated five times with little to no effort. This time, he just grabbed a rucksack and walked in a line with a group of construction workers.

The inside of the manor was in an overall better state than the outside city: it was easy to imagine efforts had been focused in there. Scanning the plaza, he almost immediately saw Ebisu and Fujita. They were part of En’s inner circle, maybe…

 _No, it’s better not to._ He kept walking, keeping an eye out for a familiar face...or mask.

“Hey!” Someone called. At first he ignored it, until a hand grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” It was one of En’s goons, the nondescript mask and dark pantsuit hiding everything about their identity. “If you’re here to help, do something. Otherwise, scram!”

Instinctively, Kaiman’s hand went to his knife, before stopping. He sighed. “I’m looking for Tanba’s van, I’ve got a message from the shop.”

The goon quietly considered his words, then let him go. “This way,” he nodded.

 _Well, I was planning to see him anyway, might as well ask for help. That is, if they don’t freak out._ He’d last seen them as Kai, and pretty much shocked them. Explaining things was going to be... _awkward._

Walking, they passed by a large building with many identical posters on the front. The posters depicted En in a victorious pose, with a background of explosions, flying cars, and a city at night. He stopped, trying to figure out what they were for, and the goon stopped as well.

“Oh, right! Tonight’s the Première of En’s movie!” they sounded pretty happy about it.

“That dude also makes movies…?” Kaiman squinted at the building, now more obviously a theatre, and at the ridiculously campy posters.

“It’s the story of En’s life and about how he single handedly defeated the Cross-Eyes Boss and brought peace back to our world!” they continued, hands joined in apparent adoration.

Kaiman made a noise like a frog had been stuck in his throat and slowly turned towards the goon, an incredibly amused grin hidden behind his mask. “...what?!”

-

When the man approached the van, Tanba was too tired to even get a good look at him. “What?!” he asked, with his usual gruff demeanour.

One of En’s lower family members was walking away, and the guy who stayed had an unfamiliar mask. “Yo, President!” He raised a hand to greet him.

“Who…” it took him a few seconds to recognize the man’s build and voice. When it clicked, he grinned. “Hell, I could’ve sworn you’d died, Kaiman!” The mask only covered the lower half of a definitely human face. “Glad to see you got your face back, did the bastard who cursed you die during the rain?!”

Hearing them talk, Fukuyama walked around the van, but he had an uncharacteristically concerned expression and didn’t approach them.

Tanba, who already had an arm around Kaiman’s shoulders, felt him tense up at his question. “Not...quite…” He was looking over at Fukuyama for a few moments, before starting to fumble with the mask’s straps. He lowered the mask and the hood at the same time, exposing a _familiar_ face.

Tanba stepped back.

“So, I was right!” Fukuyama tensed up.

Kaiman gave them an apologetic smile. “I suspect you have questions. I’ll answer but in turn, can you help me find someone?”

-

Unlike the Manor entrance, the people in line to enter the theatre were being thoroughly inspected. The back entrance was off-limits as well. Thankfully, Tanba and Fukuyama had lent him a flying broom. He hadn’t driven one since his days at school but it couldn’t be too different from a bike.

Before taking off, though, he needed to make sure Shin was actually going to be in the building.

Kaiman was scanning the crowd from the opposite side of the road, when a black car stopped in front of the building and the crowd _parted,_ as En stepped out of the car in an _outrageous_ red suit and his trademark hair sticking up like a flame. In his arms, even his demonic pet was wearing a tailored suit. “Geez, that guy surely has a grandiose sense of self-worth!”

Behind him, Shin and Noi stepped out of the car, both with their masks on and fancy new suits. Kaiman found himself grinning: he ran across the road, mingling with the crowd of fans who were trying to catch a glimpse of the family, and yelled Shin’s name a couple of times.

The man didn’t show any sign of having heard him, as he walked towards the entrance without looking around. _He looks a bit tired,_ Kaiman noted. When the trio had reached the doors a goon opened it for them and En walked in first.

“Shin!” Kaiman tried again to call him, and this time he turned around. It was hard to tell with his mask on, but he quickly scanned the crowd before shaking his head and walking in. Kaiman pouted. _Well, whatever,_ he’d just see him inside.

Pushing through the crowd, he walked away from the building, hiding in an alley before taking off. The broom, old and run-down, sputtered a bit of smoke before starting to float with a coughing noise. Kaiman then to the rooftop and with a kick he went through a small wooden window, finding himself in a dark attic full of dusty props and the like.

“Good, now…” he put down the broom. The only dim light came from the window and it took him a few minutes to find a door. It was a larger room, light coming from the cracks in the floor wooden boards. Kneeling down and peeking through one of the larger holes he could see the crowd flowing into the auditorium. Shifting a bit, he could see En taking a seat in the dress circle, together with the core members of his family. “Let’s see how to get there.”

-

“I must be going insane…” Shin muttered, sitting down in one of the comfy chairs. He could _swear_ he heard Ai’s voice earlier, but there was no way he was actually there.

The houselights went down and a spotlight turned on in their face. En stood up, calming the clamoring crowd with a hand raised. Shin barely listened to his words, as he announced his return officially and introduced them to the theme of the movie.

Finally, the spotlight turned off and with a sound of thunder the movie started, projected on a large screen to the back of the stage. Shin already saw it a so many times, hell, he _starred_ in it as himself in a couple of scenes, so he didn’t feel like paying attention to it.

Fifteen minutes in, just before the scenes Shin had starred in, there was a knock on the door. “Drinks?” a goon quietly walked in with a tray of cocktail drinks.

“Yes, please,” Shou said. Shin hadn’t even noticed Shou was there too but that didn’t come as a surprise to him.

 _“Tenjin! Thank goodness you’re alright!”_ Noi’s voice from the speakers caught his attention. _The Cross-Eyes boss holding a severed head, waiting for them around the corner._ Shin shook his head, squeezing his eyes.

“Man, I can’t believe Aitake actually gutted us during this shot,” Noi grumbled, arms crossed.

“Anything for the sake of realism,” En replied to her, without turning around. “And you used your smoke to heal afterwards, so I don’t see what’s the point of complaining.”

Shin beckoned to the goon and grabbed a glass of wine. Lifting only the lower half of his mask, he downed it in one go, immediately grabbing another one.

“Woah! What the hell! The resemblance is uncanny! How did you shoot this?!”

Hearing Kaiman’s voice caused Shin to immediately spit out his drink. Both En and Noi turned towards him. “Is everything alright, Shin?”

Shin gaped, hoping the half pulled up mask was enough to hide his _horror._ “I’m _fine…”_ he said. He was _not_ fine. Standing up, he strode towards the exit, grabbing the “goon’s” arm on the way out.

Shou shook his head, watching them go.

Once in the corridor outside the boxes, Shin turned to face the man with unbridled fury. “What are you _doing_ here?!”

Kaiman laughed, taking off the goon disguise. “Come on! Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Shin went through a series of furious and outraged expression that would’ve put to shame any mime. “No?! If En sees you here- If _anyone_ sees you here…! Your _face_ was just on the screen!”

“Oh, yeah,” he blinked. “That was impressive, a shapeshifter…? Ah, but also...bad…” he seemed to realize. He put on a mask, not the goons’ but a mask Shin had never seen before. _Did he make a new one? Does that mean…?_

“What are you doing here?!” he asked again, more calmly this time.

“Oh, I just wanted to see you. You left so abruptly…”

Shin stood still in bafflement for several seconds before snapping. “And you thought to sneak into a theatre packed with all sorts of powerful wizards who would kill you on _sight?!_ Are you an idiot?!”

“Yes!” Kaiman nodded, shamelessly proud. “I _am_ an idiot, and that’s why you should tell me things outright instead of just _hinting_ at them!” He stepped forward and pushed lightly on Shin’s chest with a finger. “If you want to be my Partner, just ask.”

Shin gaped, processing what he’d just been told. “I-”

“The answer’s no, by the way,” Kaiman stepped back. “I don’t want to live as a Sorcerer, I’m fine with my life as it is now! Ah, I don’t mind visiting from time to time, though, if you promise to do the same!”

Shin blinked. _Tell me things outright, uh?_

 _“What do you want, Shin?”_ Noi’s words earlier that afternoon were sitting heavily next to his heart. Shin took off his mask and after a moment, he let it fall to the ground.

While Kaiman was still looking at the falling piece of fabric, Shin stepped forward and with a hand he grabbed his new mask and lowered it down. [Time seemed to stop](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/543206942277894144/699659289459032074/commission_giulia0202.jpg) when their lips touched, it was the rush of relief after coffee first time in the morning, the knowledge he was about to have some energy at last.

Kaiman’s hands were pressed against his chest, radiating heat, but there was not enough strength or intent in them put to push him away.

When Shin finally pulled away, he realized with a touch of triumphant satisfaction that Kaiman’s face was bright red and utterly shocked. “Well,” he gave him a smug smile, closing the distance between them again. “You did tell me to tell you things outright.”

-

_Raindrops fell heavy against the window, leaving lines of dirt and dust on the glass. Ai returned from the kitchen with two cups of warm tea to find Shin passed out on the sofa_

_Who could blame him? He had been exhausted and the rain was just the final gut punch._

_Slowly, careful not to make a sound, he put down the cups and went back to the kitchen to turn off the lights before heading towards the door._

_Hiro would be home soon, anyway._

_At the door, though, he stopped and turned around. Shin was still, except for the slow movement of his chest going up and down, his mouth was slightly open and his hand were half closed next to his chest._

_Without even realizing it, Ai walked back into the apartment and sat on the floor, next to the sofa._

_He crossed his arm on the pillows, careful not to touch or wake up Shin, and leaned on them. He looked so peaceful and defenseless._

_Slowly, he raised a hand and touched his face, moving some strands of hair away from his eyes and passing a thumb over his eyebrows._

_Maybe it was this small action, maybe it was Shin's light frown when he did, but Ai's heart suddenly was trying to get out of his chest. It was the loudest noise in the room._

_He stood up, not before daring to get even closer and leaving a quick peck on Shin's head. It was good anyway,_ he would never know.

_And the rain would wash away his heartbeat._

-

Kaiman frowned, even with his eyes closed it was _too bright._ Sunlight entered unblocked by the open window, flooding an unfamiliar room.

He almost jumped out of bed at the sight of a demonic smile, tongue hanging out, from the opposite wall, before remembering where he was.

He turned around to see Shin, still asleep and unbothered by the sunlight. His mouth was slightly open and his hands half closed, next to his chest. Kaiman smiled and lay back down, crossing his arms behind his head.

"You seriously _have_ to redecorate if you want to keep me around," he said quietly, glaring at the unsightly demonic furniture.

Shin stirred a bit but didn't seem to wake up at the remark. Kaiman shifted to the side, turning towards him, and raised a hand to gently touch his face, tracing with an index the shape of his jawline, lips and nose.

It was at that moment that someone started knocking insistently at the door.

"Shin? I know you're sleeping in! I need to speak with you immediately!" En's familiarly annoying voice came through the door.

Shin jumped awake, looking around with the alarmed look of a deer caught in the headlights.

Kaiman smiled and quickly but silently got out of bed, starting to put his clothes back on.

"Shin?!" The knocking increased.

"One moment!" He called back, but his eyes were on Kaiman as the latter grabbed one of Shin's shirt and mouthed. "Can I…?"

Shin laughed quietly and waved a hand to let him know he could. Once he was fully dressed, he headed to the window, noting with disappointment that the room was on a _pretty high_ floor.

Shin seemed to notice because he sighed and with a hand raised, summoned a door to Hole.

Kaiman grinned and, before heading to the new door, went back to the bed and gave him a quick peck on the nose.

"Just go…" Shin mouthed, ignoring En's calls once again, but his expression was anything but annoyed.

Kaiman opened the door, it was raining on the other side, and turned around one last time. "You'll see me again."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Wino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wino/pseuds/Wino) for beta-reading.  
> Art by [Flavia De Vita](https://www.facebook.com/fdevitart/).


End file.
